Feathers Drenched in Oil
by mr-doctor-felicia
Summary: It's already morning by the time Beatrice realizes that the liquid that runs down her cheeks is no longer salty tears, but oil—the blackest she's ever seen. Greg returns to the Unknown and realizes that defeating the Beast just might happen a little differently this time.
1. calm before the storm

**The Bird**

 **Chapter One:**

Winter is always a chilly and positively dreary affair, and though everyone finds the idea of staying at home wrapped in numerous layers of warm wool quite welcome, the news of the Beast's defeat doesn't seem to want to sit still at all. It travels from place to place quieter than any wildfire, consuming a whole village one morning and leaving it abuzz with whispered conversation by afternoon. Messengers of this news ranges from a hastily written letter, a whisper, hurried yell, and a town boy running down the dirt road, mouth stumbling over his words. _This is it. We're safe. The Beast is gone._

Needless to say, news of the Beast being vanquished is old talk by the time Spring gets all the fields green again. No one forgets though, and they are certain they never would. Especially Beatrice.

"What do you mean _no_?"

Beatrice huffs. "I meant what I said— I don't want to go on the silly trip."

Her Mom huffs as well, mouth twisting into a grimace identical to hers. The both of them are in the sitting room, Mom mending some worn clothes and Beatrice sketching. She isn't any good at it in her opinion, and all her drawings ended up in the fire the moment she'd finish.

"But why? Aren't you tired of the country life?" Mom lets go of the needle she holds and meets Beatrice's gaze.

Oh, she is. Beatrice is tired of walking four miles just to get to school, tired of waking up at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens, and completely tired of all the birds that manage to follow her wherever she goes. She couldn't make heads or tails of what they want with her now that she's human again, but they seem to still see her as one of them and would sometimes leave worms wriggling in her lunch bucket or some stalks of trampled hay for her 'nest'. Some of her younger siblings actually kept the hay they got, and would make perfect little nests for young turtle doves or a passing crow to stay in for the night. That would have been fine and all; if only the stupid things would stop with all the birdsong Beatrice swears she can hear even when they're gone.

Really, it was great that her family wanted to leave and find a better life somewhere. But just not right now.

The silence stretches, the question unanswered, and Mom finally sighs, letting her head hang in apparent defeat as she picks up her needle again. Her voice betrays the fact that she'd raised eight children and it sounds so worn and old as she speaks. "Well, we certainly can't leave without you."

Beatrice feels something tug at her insides. She'd never seen her Mom want something as bad as this before. Even becoming human again had been second to her duties as a mother when they lived in a tree trunk all those months ago.

"I-I'll come."

Beatrice almost feels real, physical pain as she peels her gaze from the window she didn't know she'd been facing. The paper that burns in the fireplace later that night contains a sketch of two figures against a dark background.

The trip is planned quickly and Beatrice almost forgets to check the woods every night for signs of a glinting teakettle or navy blue cloak with all the packing she has to do. _Almost_ —she'd never forget to check, ever.

The best pots and pans go into the heavy wooden crates that Dad fills with fresh hay while the rusted ones are driven to the nearest market and are sold. Dresses go along with the pots and pans sometimes, since they would be one of Mom's prettier ones and sported a lot of delicate beading and various ribbons. Mom even sews each of them a little velvet pouch she instructs to fill with their most precious belongings. Beatrice fills hers with her hand-me-down pearl earrings and a few sharpened pieces of charcoal she wraps in cloth to keep from staining the green velvet.

A week passes and suddenly all the neighbours are knocking on their door and bring in jars of pickled vegetables and jams of every color. Links of smoked sausage hang from their kitchen's low rafters and Dad makes sure to bring along a pan. The jars are the last to be packed into wooden crates because no one expects their neighbours to bring over so much food and Beatrice regrets not giving some to Wirt and Greg when they left for home.

They are leaving the next day and Beatrice helps load the last bits of kindling and firewood they would need onto one of the three carts they would be taking on the trip. Her siblings help at first, but then the boys start to tire of the ordeal and they scatter one by one until even her sisters laugh and make up some excuse before running off to play again. Beatrice would normally snap at them for leaving her with all the work, but she's glad for the semi-peace they've granted her and she finishes the job quicker than she had expected.

She doesn't come along with her siblings later on when they make the hour-long trek to school to say goodbye to all their friends and packs up a basket of food to bring into the woods instead. The house is quiet as she picks out the food to bring, her face already sporting a small smile by the time she closes up the basket and exits the house.

Beatrice expects the green field outside to be empty, but sees that Mom is outside peeling potatoes and radishes, the sack beside her still full. She'd probably just started. Dad had peddled away on his bicycle earlier to sell the last few things they couldn't manage to squeeze into their three carts and with all her siblings gone for school Beatrice had thought she would be alone in the house for most of the morning.

"I thought you were visiting the Tavern Keeper."

"Oh, I already did. That sweet woman even gave me all these vegetables."

Beatrice doesn't bother to raise an eyebrow. She's gotten used to Mom being able to make it to one place and back again twice as fast as she could and be ready to wrangle up a whole feast for the family afterwards. She sighs, settling herself to the idea of having to ask permission and sits across from the older woman.

The grass is soft and sweet-smelling and though Beatrice didn't plan on having to ask permission to enter the woods, she finds herself smiling. "I packed a lunch to share with the Woodsman and his daughter. I wanna say goodbye before we leave."

"What food did you bring?" Beatrice has to stop herself from startling at Mom's answer. The Woodsman's cabin is in a darker and less frequented clearing, and her parents always worry about her coming over so often. It was the first time Mom had reacted so calmly to her wanting to go visit the cabin.

Maybe the emotional toll of moving showed so painfully in Beatrice's demeanour that Mom felt sorry for her. "Some cheese and a loaf of bread," she peeked under the basket's woven cover. "And that jar filled with rhubarb preserves."

"Hm. You better bring a bit of the molasses Ms. Langtree brought over. The Woodsman's daughter needs more meat on her bones if she wants to be a logger like her Da." Mom gestures to the big glass jug sitting among the crates of grain and old mill parts. Ms. Langtree had delivered the molasses herself, the memory of her wishing them all luck still fresh in Beatrice's mind.

It was also from the young school teacher that Beatrice finds out about Quincy Endicott. She's surprised she didn't know about the millionaire's disappearance earlier— since Mom always shares the juiciest gossip at the dinner table— but that surprise soon turns to the realization that she really didn't mind Endicott being gone. She _has_ visited a few times since Wirt and Greg left, and the old man makes it a point to give her and whichever sibling she brought at the time a shiny penny.

Even his newfound love Margueritte Grey finds his absence to only be mildly baffling, and she continues running both Grey and Endicott tea businesses as if Endicott had went on an extended vacation. Beatrice visited the Endicott-Grey mansion the moment Ms. Langtree departed from the Old Grist Mill and saw first-hand Grey being her usual self. She left soon after, noting grimly how Grey didn't touch the tea and cookies she'd set for them and the saddled horse ready to go waiting in one of her stables.

It barely comes as a surprise when the woman disappears the very next day.

"Well, get going." Mom's voice breaks into her thoughts. "Just be back to help make dinner. We'll be up early tomorrow."

"Right," Beatrice says, shaking the thoughts out of her head. "I'll be going now."

Mom hummed in response, still peeling by the time she gets up and turns away.

The wind picks up by the time Beatrice reaches the jug of molasses, reddish dirt whirling about her heels as she sets the basket down and hoists the jug out from the cart. Rich, dark brown liquid sloshed around lazily inside and its caramel scent invaded her senses. She grabs a discarded milk bottle and pulls the cork out of the jug's mouth, even more of the strong scent getting into her lungs and coating her throat.

Beatrice smiles bitterly, watching as a single golden line of molasses trickles from the jug's lip and into the milk bottle below. The tune comes easily for her, and soon she's humming.

A little voice sounding like Greg (or what she remembers to be Greg) chirps up a few jumbled song lines about potatoes and molasses in her head to accompany the humming. When the lyrics awkwardly end in the middle and the humming cuts to a lonesome silence, Beatrice feels the familiar pain set in.

The tune barges back into her head like someone playing the piano while she slept, the notes jumpy and jolting down every nerve ending. Half of the lyrics that she can remember echo eerily and bounce around her skull, syllables stretching out to fill the few terrible seconds. Her hands tighten on the smooth and slightly sticky surface of the jug.

 _(Oh, potatoes and molasses)_

 _No._

 _(If you want so—)_ Here the words melt and run into each other because she's forgotten the rest and the little Greg-voice is just a suggestion with a jarring tune playing along with it on a continuous loop. Beatrice feels the grimace pull at her lips and she screws her eyes shut, willing herself to stay steady in spite of everything. 

_Stop stop stop._

And then the voice quiets, Beatrice barely lifting the jug back up before the milk bottle overflowed.

The memories are getting worse. There are never any nightmares, but the constant assault of pain that would follow a memory that concerned Wirt and Greg made Beatrice wish for them instead.

At first the pain was only a slight ache in her head or dizziness for a few seconds, which always disappeared after a few seconds and she wouldn't be certain if they were connected to the memories at all. But then she would wake up forgetting the color of Wirt's pointy hat one day and be plagued with migraines and a horrid ache in her chest like her lungs were being pressed down with a brick until she finally remembers that _yes, that hat had been red. Like Mary Ann's old frock._

She notices later that it was only when she forgets some little detail about the two brothers that the pain becomes almost unbearable. So she would keep their memory under lock and key at all times, only letting fleeting thoughts of them pass her mind when she was sketching since it always helped unclog all the little things she would forget and keep the pain at bay for a longer time. It was the first in a few weeks that she'd forgotten something, and she was glad that after blinking a few times, the continuation of Greg's song she'd previously forgotten bubbles up from somewhere in her head and whisks the remnants of the pain away.

"Ha, I remember." Beatrice murmurs to herself, tucking the milk bottle into the basket and putting the jug back onto the cart. "I remember."

The molasses make the basket the tiniest bit heavier, and it reminds Beatrice of what she was doing in the first place. She mops a sleeve across her forehead, frowning at her own foolishness for wearing long sleeves in this heat. Her feet make the short walk from the mill to the woods' edge and she can feel some of the bounce coming back into her step the closer she gets.

She's hitching her maroon skirts up to her knees when Mom calls out to her.

"Beatrice! I forgot something!"

Maroon skirts and an off-white petticoat drop to the ground with a faint rustle of cloth. Beatrice leaves the basket of food by the tree line and runs back to where her mom is still peeling. The bag is almost empty.

"What'd you forget?"

"The Tavern Keeper wanted to give you something." Mom's hands stop their work to rummage in her pockets, a smile on her face as she pulls out a small lump wrapped in checked cloth.

Beatrice waits for her to elaborate as she takes into her own hands. Something hard and angular digs into her palms through the cloth. She undoes the knot and the cloth's edges fall away like a tower made of blocks, two wooden figurines sitting primly in her hand. For some reason, the sight of them doesn't trigger any pain, but lets a slew of memories free from the confides of her mind. Beatrice guesses looking at the figurines is quite a bit like sketching, and smiles wide enough for her cheeks to hurt.

"Pretty, aren't they?"

Beatrice looks up, still too happy and shocked to really see Wirt and Greg again—Even if it was in wooden statue form. "Yeah. Yeah, they're really nice."

"The Toymaker moved away a few weeks ago, and everyone from town wanted to get the statuettes he'd left in the old tavern. There was even a bluebird, but the Tavern Keeper said she'd given it away to someone earlier. These were the only two left."

"Why didn't she give them away like the others, then?"

"Ah," Mom reaches over to pluck at one of the statuettes. It turns out to be the one that looked like Wirt, and Beatrice smirks at the spooked expression on its painted face. Mom turns it over on her hands and points to a small etching on the bottom of Wood-Wirt's foot. "Read it."

Squinting, Beatrice reads. " _Reserved for the bluebird_ ,"she frowns. "And the Tavern Keeper is sure _I'm_ the bluebird he's talking about?"

"Well of course," the sarcasm in her mom's voice is thick and Beatrice already knows what she's about to say. "You're probably the only talking bluebird that ever entered that place. The old toymaker wouldn't forget you for a second."

"The Keeper shooed me out, Mom."

"I know. But she already apologized, didn't she?" At this the older woman returns the figurine. "And anyway, these carvings mean something to you, right?"

Beatrice almost doesn't hear her mom's words, her hands still poised to take the figurine back. She almost succeeds in shutting herself up before any words could leave her lips.

Almost. "Don't you remember who they are?"

"Remember who?"

"The figurines," Her hands shake as she grips at both. "They're Wirt and Greg."

"Who…?"

A broken sob bubbles at Beatrice's throat. She hacks out a cough to hide it, a frown already in place. No one had really remembered Wirt and Greg since the two left. She should've gotten used to her being the only one to remember them. But even she was breaking, memories of them either coming harsh and painful or like an old dream. And if she forgets…who'd remember them then?

It would be like they never existed.

She ties the checked cloth around the figurines and gets up. "They're book characters."

"Hm." The air about them shifts and Beatrice stops to listen. "Are you sure? I can sort of remember seeing a pair of them around here before…"

"Really?" Beatrice looks down and sees Mom looking at the woods in a sort of trance, either on the verge of sleep or recalling some old memory. She hopes it's the latter and clutches at the figurines tighter.

An array of emotions ranging from confusion to sadness pulled at the edges of Mom's mouth, lines appearing and diapering at each new expression. She finally settles on a firm line that makes her look as resolute as Beatrice has ever seen her. Her grey eyes gain back their focus and she begins peeling again.

"No." The older woman shakes her head and winces, or at least seems to, before speaking again. "I think I'd remember if I saw two fellows dressed as strangely as that."

By the time Beatrice answers, she's already turned away to hide her face.

"…Yeah. You probably would."

The rhubarb jam is sweet on Beatrice's tongue, and she smiles at the grin on her companion's face at the taste of it. Anna—or the Woodsman's daughter as everyone seems to be calling her— meets her eyes and smiles back, wider than Beatrice could ever accomplish. Bits of rhubarb color the girl's teeth and Beatrice laughs.

"I still can't believe you've _never_ eaten rhubarb jam before." Beatrice says later, indicating the open jar before them. Anna swipes some of it onto the slice of bread she's holding and stuffs it into her mouth. The girl is a few years younger than her, and has a voracious appetite that contrasts heavily with her skinny and small frame.

She mumbles her reply through the food in her mouth. "I've never eaten rhubarbs before, period. For all I know, this whole jar might be filled with poison that just tastes awesome."

Beatrice rolls her eyes. Sometimes Anna reminds her so much of Gre— no, not thinking about that anymore. It wouldn't do ending up on the floor in a pained heap; especially on the last day she'd see the only person in town who doesn't remember her as 'the cursed bluebird.' She has the Woodsman to thank for that.

"Yep. I thought I might as well poison you since I'd be leaving tomorrow anyway."

"Don't remind me! I'll make sure to wake up nice and early to see you off." Anna announces, reaching over to grab at one of the scones she's prepared herself.

The Woodsman is still out by the time they finish lunch and wrap up the left overs for him to eat. They wash the few plates they use and end up lounging on the cabin's small porch: Anna perched on her father's rocking chair and Beatrice sitting cross-legged below her. They talk about where Beatrice's family plans to move to, and Beth gushes on about adventure and all the new things she would see.

"You'd get to see all those new things and I get stuck here in the middle of the forest, with absolutely no one to talk to with you moving _awaaay_."

Beatrice feels sorry for the girl since what she's saying is mostly true. Anna didn't attend school, so she really had no other kids her age to talk to her since Beatrice came along. "Ask your dad to move, then. I'm sure he'd think about it."

"Oh no, I'm fine where I am."

"Wha…? But I thought you wanted adventure and whatever else you've always talked about." Beatrice looks up to see that Anna is smiling. The smile is somehow giddy and slightly painful all at once, one Beatrice would never imagine seeing on Anna's thoughtful face. It speaks of ages she has never seen, and it takes her aback for a second.

Anna returns to her usual thoughtful expression and looks to the trees that surround them. "I already know where my place is. Adventure was never meant for me, I guess."

" _That's_ depressing."

"It's true! Getting turned into an Edelwood tree does teach you some things."

Lead drops in Beatrice's gut, something heavy and serious weighing down Anna's shoulders as she looks on. They never talked about _that._

"Like embroidery? Miss Thatcher hated my last sampler, said only a spell could get my hands nimble enough to handle a needle properly." Beatrice tries to lighten the mood, but what she'd told Anna is true. Her hands have always sported pinpricks on different levels of healing ever since Mom taught her how to sew at all.

At least it does the trick. Anna cracks a smile and says, "You should've asked Father. He's great at sewing and things."

They both laugh at that, great hiccups mixing into Beatrice's laughs the longer they last. She feels her cheeks color from all the laughing, and she relishes the feeling of the hard wood floors against her palms and the smell of pine in the wind. It's a strange feeling, being this content after so long of just _waiting._

Beatrice promises to herself as the laugher slowly bubbles out of her system that she would remember this moment for as long as she could.

"By the way, where is your father?" Beatrice suddenly remembers the time and looks back to the woods. It's surely past lunch time by now, why hasn't the Woodsman come?

"He's never home until the sun sets. Everyone needs his help lately."

That piques Beatrice's curiosity and makes her eyes go wide. "Help for what?"

"Haven't you noticed?" Anna gestures all about her. "People are disappearing, Beatrice. They're all tired of spending their lives cooped up in stupid houses and want to travel into the woods now that the Beast is gone. They very well can't do that without some directions."

The image of Margueritte Grey flashes in Beatrice's head, the woman slipping into the woods on horseback just hours after she'd visited their stately mansion. The thought makes her bones rattle and sweat breaks across her skin. "They can't really be _disappearing_ , right?"

Anna pales slightly and looks away. "Well, you can't say they're still here."

"But where else would they go?"

"How should I know?" Anna chuckles, stopping only when she notices Beatrice still staring at her. She leans in and continues in a more conspiratorial tone: "But if the people who've disappeared lately were still here, then why have they never returned?"

The figurines still in Beatrice's dress pocket grow ten times heavier at her friend's words.

"So what are you saying? That there are other worlds besides our own?" Beatrice huffs out a stiff laugh.

The idea is crazy and could never be true, but Anna isn't wrong; not really. People have been disappearing, many more so than Beatrice would like to point out. The marketplace she passes on her way to the schoolhouse is a little calmer than usual and the shop windows that are nailed shut are far more than the ones that are left open. Families and kids Beatrice's age have gotten a knack for going into the woods for longer periods of time, sometimes they wouldn't come back. And like Grey, the people left behind would just shrug it off and say that they'd be home in a few days. _Or like the Tavern Keeper and say that they'd moved away._

Anna shrugs, not offended by the flabbergasted expression on Beatrice's face. "Where did you think Wirt and Greg wanted to return to?"

If the figurines seemed heavy then, they were like boulders in her pockets now. Beatrice is honestly afraid they would rip through her clothes and break through the wooden flooring any second. But they don't, so she doesn't have an excuse to run away.

Her voice is thick when she replies. "You knew Wirt and Greg?"

"Only bits and pieces. Father told me about them," she pauses to consider Beatrice for a moment. "You knew them longer though, right?"

Beatrice could barely nod her head yes.

 _She wasn't alone._

 _Wasn't the only one to remember._

 _Not alone. Not alone._ The words repeat themselves in her head like a chant.

"Can you tell me about them?" Anna's voice cuts into her thoughts.

 _Not alone._

Beatrice agrees, grinning a bit madly.

"This… is terrible."

"You're not the one pushing the cart, Gil." Beatrice huffs out from behind said cart; sweat darkening the her clothes and plastering hair onto her neck. Her brother Francis is beside her, his face red and barely able to nod along to her sentiment. "See? Francis agrees with me. They're going to abandon us if we get any slower."

" _Fiiiine._ You don't need to whine so much."

Beatrice could feel a biting remark on the tip of her tongue, but she's just too tired to answer. She puts more weight onto the cart and she feels it move an inch. The wood creaks at the motion, the glass bottles inside clinking dangerously. Beatrice ignores the sound and the way her brother tenses up and pushes even harder.

It gives, finally, and they all lurch forward a few steps.

The twins at the front of the cart bite back a curse they've probably heard Beatrice using and look back at them, identical smiles curling their lips. Beatrice grabs Francis by the back of his shirt and helps him get his thin legs through the mud the cart was stuck in only moments before, both of them still flushed by the time they take their places beside Gil and Patrick. They all grab the cart's handle and pull, trying to catch up with the rest of their family.

Only two of their three carts have horses to pull them with, and the whole family works on rotations to see which unlucky family member would get to pull along the smallest cart behind all the rest. The cart itself wasn't very heavy, and Beatrice was certain she could pull it along alone fine for at least a few hours, it was the path that really seemed to hate her.

Spring this year was mostly heavy rain or a cloudless sky, and the two mixed together provides them with cool air and pretty flowers to look at, but also a ton of mud. And the mud always bore uneven spots that would dip or rise suddenly. Most were messy and had Beatrice and her siblings lugging about trying to find a suitable eddy to wash off the mud and change. She could count at least five dresses soaked with water hanging along the biggest cart's edge, drying in the sun's heat. The boys were lucky; a shirt and breeches would dry off in a few hours, a dress took a whole morning. (Only if it was a hot morning, or else wearing it would be like stepping into a winter flurry) And it was just the second day; they would be out of dry clothes by the end of the week.

But they never make it a week.

A few days pass and the rotations put Beatrice safely in a cart pulled by one of the horses while her siblings Ella, Marcus, Julia, and Benedict toil behind to pull the littlest cart along.

It turns into one of those rainy Spring days, and a heavy tarp is covering the little cart to keep the sacks of flour and other foodstuffs from getting wet. The two main carts already have a makeshift roof out of metal arcs that Dad attached some tarp onto, and it keeps the rain away fairly well. She's lucky to be in the one that carries the broken-up mill parts, since Dad paid extra attention to keep it all dry and rust-free.

The cart she's in is a little ways apart from the others because of the rain, caught right in the middle of the two others. Beatrice could just make out the silhouette of the smallest cart through the haze of rain fall. She knows she should be helping them pull it along, but she got into a nasty fall the last time she was pulling it along during a storm and she did _not_ want it to happen again.

And it wasn't because a cart's wheel almost ran over her arm the last time.

The fall caused her to rip the hem of her dress, and she could remember only feeling panic as she searched the muddy path for the velvet pouch she hid in the seams. She eventually found it of course, and is even holding it now, the edges poking through the soft cloth enough to give her comfort. Nothing could really do that anymore—especially since the move.

The combination of the familiar edges digging into her palm and the constant swaying lulls Beatrice into a sleep you could somewhat describe as peaceful. For as she tips her head back and gives off a snore, her eyes are already moving frantically in their sockets, dreams unravelling like thread in every corner of her mind.

She sees the brothers in her dreams, two shadows in a mess of tree branches. Their voices echo with all the words they'd ever spoken to her, and some she wishes they did. The dreams couldn't be nightmares, but they behave like one, crippling her with thoughts about them until night comes and she dreams again. It's a cycle she's gotten more than used to.

" _Beatrice!"_

Her body lurches up with a start, her skin slick with cold. Beatrice feels the mud between her fingers and the clumps of it in her hair. The smell of earth and metal tinge the stale air she breathes.

"What the heck happened?" Beatrice says, whispering in a voice foreign to her ears. She manages to push herself up the torn tarp, watching it pull away from her at the movement. Rain pounds on her head as she looks around. "Mom? Dad?"

The scene is terrifying.

The cart she was in as she fell to sleep is turned over and she discovers that she probably fell out of the opening and landed on the mud during the fall. The horses are nowhere to be seen.

And she notices, as she picks herself up and almost slip-slides across the ground, that her family is nowhere to be seen either. The path is empty of all other life save for the crows picking at the food rolling across the ground. They are black against the grey sky and they don't seem to notice or even care for her presence, continuing their feast on the muddy apples and peeled radishes rolling across the ground.

"Hey!" Beatrice grabs the hem of her dress and lifts up handfuls of its blue material until she's able to walk across the muddy track, her feet sinking inches into the mud with each step. "Get off of there! Ugh, we need that food!"

Something hard jabs into the heel of her foot, and she topples at the pain that shoots up her leg. Mud streaks her face and she'd sure it's also in her mouth by the time she gets up again. The crows are still there. "Alright. Not going anywhere, huh?"

Beatrice reaches down and closes her fist around the object, raising her fist up into the air. She's about to throw it at one of the biggest crows when freezes. The edges of the object are familiar in her grip and she brings her arm back down and opens her fist.

Mud is covering almost every inch of it, but the slightest bit of green is still visible through the grime. Beatrice lets out a choked breath and clutches the green pouch to her chest, fingers shaking as her knees fold and she crumbles to the ground. _She almost forgot about the figurines. Almost forgot about Wirt and Greg. Almost forgot about everything. Almost. Almost. Almost._

" _Beatrice?"_

Her head snaps up at the voice. Wirt; it was Wirt's voice.

Her hands scramble to push herself up from the mud and when she does, her eyes immediately go wide. She could feel her heart almost stop in her chest.

"It's them."

A warm glow is emanating from between the inky branches of the woods ahead. It's a faint glow, but Beatrice could never mistake the two shadows cutting through the light. She could almost see the metallic glint of Greg's teapot hat and feel Wirt's warm cape wrap around her shoulders. And so she runs. Runs until she falls face-first into the mud.

Dirt and little pebbles roll across her tongue and crunch between her teeth as she grimaces. Her knees are bruised and bleeding, red seeping into her skirt.

But the light is still there, fleeting through the branches. Beatrice's chest tightens and she grips the figurines tighter. She kicks her shoes free from her feet and scrambles up and into the trees after them, feet pounding on the ground and eyes following the ghostly light. Rain peppers her face as she runs, dirt flying up in brown puffs in her wake.

It's slightly nostalgic, running this hard and fast. It's almost like flying.

Beatrice still remembers the feeling of her wings unfurling from her sides as she took off each time, the wind caressing her face and ruffling her feathers. She's worked to make her and her family human again, but she can't really say that being a bluebird was all bad. Being able to fly among the clouds with no abandon was delicious and she wishes she'd taken the time to actually enjoy being a different being for once.

Maybe it was just the Unknown reminding her how much it seems to hate her, or just dumb luck, for the moment she thinks about flying; she does.

A root sticking up from the soft earth hooks onto one of Beatrice's feet and she pitches forward with enough force to send her tumbling. She isn't able to catch herself after the first impact, her head too startled to act just yet. Her body rolls down the slope she didn't know she was running along like some ragdoll, arms useless and clothes snagging on fallen branches. Some drag along beside her as she falls, their sharp points piercing her skin and tearing her clothes. All this Beatrice sees only through brief moments when her eyes are able to open and mud isn't plastered onto her face.

She rolls into a rotten tree stump and it's only then that she stops.

Pain enough to numb her brain wracks her body. The tree stump is partially uprooted from her landing, its roots rising from the ground like the newest saplings. The aroma that only comes from freshly-tilled soil invades her nostrils. Not much of it reaches her brain though, since breathing has become a chore and some crazy part of her head points out that she's probably knocked a few of her ribs out of place. _Well, who needs breathing anyway._

Beatrice cracks her eyes open and manages to crawl into a sitting position. Her every breath is unbearably painful, and the light ahead of her is so dim she can barely see it. The same crazy part of her prompts her nose to take in as much air as she can, her chest expanding. Black dots swim in her vision and she almost faints but she doesn't and the pouch she's still holding is torn in some places and the figurines' pointy bits are painful _but she doesn't let them go_.

Warmth pools in her palm and the green velvet is soaked in red. Beatrice spares it a quick glance, her mouth and nose still gasping for breath.

It happens suddenly, like swinging an axe down onto a piece of wood and not knowing when it splits itself perfectly into halves. Her ribs are like that, poking into her lungs for what seems like an eternity before suddenly popping back into place with what seems like an audible creak of bone. Air floods her system and the ordeal leaves her sore and with almost no energy left to move.

Her eyes are almost closed and she isn't certain if she wants to wake up or not.

" _Beatrice."_ It's Greg's voice now, light and cheery.

"Wait…" Beatrice says, grabbing at dirt and moss and whatever she could get into her hands. "Wait for me."

She all but crawls to the light, her legs shaking too much to hold her body upright for any longer than a minute. The trees are the only things keeping her from falling again, their bark pressing close to her face and smelling like rain. It's slow work, but at least she's getting somewhere.

Beatrice could almost feel the light's warmth on her skin, its orange hue tinting her skin as she neared. There is a small downhill slope before she could reach it, and Beatrice lets go of the tree branch she's holding. Her legs crumple beneath her and she crouches in the mud, breath loud and cold in her ears.

Her hands dig into the soil behind her and she counts, _one, two three._ Rain, fear, and deep breaths punctuate each number. She almost stops herself, but then the light flickers, almost going out. She lets go.

It's not as bad as the first time, and the path is muddier and with less branches than the first one. Pebbles bump and jostle against her toes and fingers, and Beatrice hopes that none of them will be broken any time soon. The light is brighter and nearer than she could ever imagine and it dances on the water clinging to the leaves above her. It even gets into her hair, lighting the muddy mass up into its natural bright red.

Beatrice gets stuck halfway on a branch of some sort, and the back of her dress is ripped but she barely notices because she's reached the bottom. And she knew what to expect, so what she actually sees makes the pain of all her wounds come back tenfold. She's already on her hands and knees when she stops sliding down the hill, and now even those are crumpling beneath her. She manages just the littlest bit of strength to pull her knees against her chest and curl up into a ball.

Hot and cold sensations rage against her skin, cool rain washing the mud from her arms and blood oozing from her cuts. There are tears too, squeezing past the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Beatrice is sure at first that the tears are for Wirt and Greg, the two brothers nowhere to be seen in the clearing. She knows she's probably imagined seeing their shadows the whole time and the thought makes her sob even harder. Her chest is still sore, so she takes stiff and shallow breaths between each heavy sob, her head growing fuzzy the longer she sits in the clearing.

The longer she sits though, her mind spirals back to the beginning. _My family is gone._

No one knows this, and Beatrice makes sure to keep it a secret— especially from her family—but she's promised herself to never abandon them ever again. Running away to get the magical scissors from Adelaide was mostly to get rid of her own guilt, and she'd be lying if the pang of homesickness that always followed her back then wasn't just another way to punish herself for what she did. It's her biggest promise, and she's just broken it, running off into the woods like a maniac. A pain like the one connected to her memories of Wirt and Greg lay heavy on her shoulders and twines around her middle. It is much worse than that though, darker and bringing the thought that unlike being abandoned, she'd been the one to abandon them in the first place. Beatrice thinks that this just might be the feeling of your heart breaking.

"Sorry… I'm so sorry. Please— please just come back."

A rustle makes her look up.

The clearing is still utterly empty of any life, save for the little fire someone had built. Beatrice knows this was the source of the warm light from before, and all she wants to do is stomp it out until only its embers remain, but it's cold and the fire is the only source of warmth she has. She doesn't look at it for long, the sight of Wirt and Greg's shadows against it still too fresh in her mind.

The rustle comes again and Beatrice sees a shiny black turtle among the mud. It's barely even moving, its little flippers stuck in the muck. Beatrice unwraps her arms from around her sides and crawls to the black mass.

 _Was this a joke?_

She's ran all the way to this place, and all she sees is a tiny fire and a damn _turtle_? Rage bubbled in her, replacing even the pain—at least for the moment.

Beatrice growled between her teeth, legs gaining enough strength to stand and walk shakily over to the turtle. It still wriggled in the mud as if it didn't even see her. Beatrice raises her foot and slams it down hard over the animal, her mouth stretching open wide in a broken scream.

She feels her voice reach the heavens, the leaves shaking in its wake.

The scream soon turns into a little laugh, melancholic and tear-stained. _This is so stupid._ She tries another laugh, and ends up choking on a sob and falling down onto her knees. She doesn't stop crying for a while after that.

It's already morning by the time Beatrice realizes that the liquid that runs down her cheeks is no longer salty tears, but oil—the blackest she's ever seen.


	2. dying roses

**A/N: I'm not very good at writing these things, so just sit back and enjoy the story! Oh, this isn't beta'd and I didn't proof read it very well. So yeah. Enjoy :)**

* * *

Greg picks up a fallen red leaf from the ground and frowns. "Huh. I'm pretty sure it was summer just a while ago."

" _Really?_ It doesn't seem like it. I feel like it's been autumn forever."

Greg turns to face Sara, an eyebrow raised high enough to make the older girl laugh. It doesn't stop him from pondering though. He's eight and a _half_ now, and able to distinguish the seasons from each other right enough for his teacher to give him a gold star. Short pants and trips to beach meant summer, and he's wearing a pair of shorts right now. He's not sure about the trips to the beach part, but anyways, he is sure it's summer.

And as another piece of proof, he's still holding the wooden popsicle stick he's been gnawing on absentmindedly for the past few minutes. The cherry taste has long left its soggy surface, but that's not the point. Eating cherry popsicles—or any other king of popsicle— is only possible during summer since eating too much of it during any other season makes his allergies flare up.

Greg's about to point that fact out, when he stops, reconsiders the thin, processed piece of wood in his hand and keeps silent. The leaves rustle above, and yes, maybe it really it is autumn.

He slips the chewed up thing in his pocket.

"Hey, you alright?"

Greg hums in response. "What?"

"You're quieter than usual. What're you thinking?"

He's thinking about allergies and how they could only be possible if a witch cast them, but then again, Sara would only laugh at that, so Greg thinks about how allergies are the only thing that he's got in common with Wirt. His older brother's came in during the colder months and is caused by cat or dog fur, but the watery eyes and red nose were characteristic to the both of them. And that leads him to think about the other times Wirt's pointy nose ever turned red, and the only times that pop into his head are when he gets really nervous or pretends not to be sad about something. Or when he worries. And Greg knows for a fact that Wirt worries a lot. It's like his job to worry about everything.

"I'm thinking about how freaked out Wirt's gonna be." Greg laughs, jumping over a fallen log. "He looks funny when he worries."

The mention of Wirt makes Sara burst into laughter. She's probably the only other person who's seen Wirt completely shut down because he was too nervous to say or do anything, the best example being when he finally got the nerve to ask her out almost a year ago. They've broken up since, but Sara always stays close by when Wirt couldn't tell Greg about his problems because he's 'too young.'

"Yeah, he'll drive himself crazy worrying." Sara says, dusting off her shirt. "Let's get going."

She tries to jump over the log after Greg, and it shouldn't have been a problem since the log was buried halfway into the ground, but for some reason her jump is cut short and she doubles over. A gasp escapes her mouth and she lands in a crumpled heap. "Agh! My a-ankle."

"Oh gosh," Greg rushes beside her, kneeling down. He can see the edge of a purple bruise peeking under the hem of her pant-leg. "That's bad, right?"

"N-Not really." Sara prods at her ankle and hisses, fingers curling into fists. "Ok, that hurt. But its fine, I think it's just a sprained ankle. I've gotten one of those before."

Greg knows Sara takes self-defence classes, and has seen her in casts or with a black eye lots of times, but she's always just laughed those off. "Are you sure? It looks painful."

"You're right about the painful part, but it'll be fine. I just need to sit a bit." Sara gestures weakly to a relatively flat piece of land a few meters away. She raises herself enough to be able to drape an arm over Greg's shoulders and half her weight pushes into his side. "Sorry, Greg. I really can't walk without a little help."

It's heavy, but Sara is small, and is just the tiniest bit taller than Greg himself. He could handle this. "You didn't have a sprained ankle a while ago."

A raspy but sincere laugh reaches his ears. "I dunno. I probably fucked up when I jumped over the log."

"Oh." Greg takes a minute to process her words before puffing up his chest and grabbing hold of her arm. "Then I'll make sure you don't fuck up again." It's meant to console her, like the time Wirt bought him a cotton candy the day they lost sight of each other in the county fair, but it just makes Sara laugh, loud and full of the little gasps she's always had when she laughs.

" _Greg!"_

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, but Wirt won't like you saying those kinds of things." Sara grins and ruffles a hand through his hair. "You're too young to swear, and he'll kill me if he finds out I said a bad word in front of you. So don't say it again, all right?"

"Ok." Greg says, keeping the newly found vocabulary in his head for later.

He tightens his grip on Sara's arm and shuffles forward, the girl limping forward beside him. The buttons of her shirt are pressing into his cheek enough for little red impressions to form, and the breath that enters his lungs is just from the few puffs he manages to inhale. Greg finds it strange how quickly his surroundings could change. Just a few minutes ago, making it to the clearing would've been a breeze, and now his surroundings are all muddled. Half of his face is obscured by Sara's torso when he takes a shaky little breath and steps forward. Leaves crunch and his foot slips, both of them tipping forward.

Sara curses again; injured leg extending to catch them out of instinct. Greg pulls his face away from Sara's torso enough to see and slams his foot down first, warm brown earth dirtying up his shoes. They're near enough the clearing for Sara to let go and pull herself up into a sitting position. Greg wipes the sweat on his brow and rubs at the indentations across his one cheek, breathing deeply for what seems like ages.

Grass brushes the backs of his knees when he sits down beside her, clearing away the crinkly leaves from the ground. Sara is busy pulling up the material of her pants to see her bruise better and she winces when the whole thing is revealed.

It's worse than all the black eyes she's previously shown them, and Greg feels his stomach flip at the sight of it. He's gotten sprained before, but not like this; with purple skin and ankle swelling to twice its original size. He tries to keep silent like Wirt is in serious situations, but a little sound escapes his throat when Sara removes her shoe and it looks _even worse._ "Ugh."

The shoe freezes in mid-air and Sara looks across at him, worry creasing her forehead. "Greg? Hey, it's fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Sara grins and reaches over to ruffle his hair. "It's only a sprain, but the bruise makes it look ten times uglier. This baby just needs some ice and it'll be good as new."

Greg pouts and spares the forest one last look before meeting the girl's eyes again. "There's no ice in the forest."

"Well, of course not. But there are sticks."

Sara doesn't say anything for a while; too busy ripping up little strips of fabric from her shirt sleeve. Greg watches her wrap the longest strip around her ankle with practiced fingers. He's still wondering about sticks and whatever Sara could want with them when she finishes with an extra-tight knot and laughs. "Aren't you going to help me?"

"Of course I am!" Greg jumps up to stand and clambers on top of a tree stump, the ground bellow becoming smaller when he stands. "Just say the word milady and I'll help with anything!"

"You can help me find a stick, that'd be helpful."

"Oh. Ok," Greg deflates a little but regains his energy when he sees the smile on Sara's face. "I'll make it the best stick ever!"

He slides off the stump and lands on the ground with a faint _thump_ and crinkle of leaves, some of them flying up and dispersing into the wind. His legs work the path with practiced ease, jumping over the log and disappearing into the forest.

" _Make sure I can use it as a walking-stick!"_ Sara's voice reaches Greg just before he enters. He grins and turns to face her, half of the tree branches already obstructing his view of her. He can see her waving though, and he waves too.

"I'll find the snazziest and fastest walking stick ever, just you wait!"

" _That's not what I mea-"_

It's much colder inside the criss-crossing branches, and Greg's certain they hadn't come out of here before they'd been able to get to that clearing. He can't recall ever being in this part of the woods before, but for some reason he finds the dips and curves of the dirt path he's following relatively easy to follow. It leads him through a thicket of trees and a small creek swimming with bright red fish.

"Jason Funderburker would've loved that," Greg comments absently, looking down at his reflection.

The water flows slowly and ripples around the few rocks that poke out of its nearly still surface, leaves and green moss floating downstream. Back home, the best place for Jason Funderburker to swim in would be in the river outside the graveyard—or when Mom didn't let them out of the house—a shallow pool of tap water in the sink. Greg wishes the frog was there with him now; wriggling in his arms and croaking up a storm.

But then Wirt would be lonely back home; waiting all day for him and Sara to get back without any company.

Greg sighs, hoping that Jason Funderburker wouldn't cause _too_ much trouble. He crosses the stream and stops at a large tree, neck craning up to see its topmost branches. Sunlight glares through the bare branches and he winces, looking back down. The tree is large and lots of its leaves litter the ground in shades of red and brown. Lots of branches and twigs are there too, the littlest ones snapping with each footfall.

They're too small to use as a walking stick though.

The wind howls above his head and the shadows grow longer, the light ebbing away into the shimmery orange haze of noon. Greg stays by the tree, looking through layers and layers of leaves for a branch strong enough to handle Sara's weight. He finally finds it a little while later, a huge thing probably blown away by the wind ages ago.

Leaves still cling to the numerous twigs and branches that are still connected to it, and Greg spends the rest of his time pulling the prickly twigs away from the main branch. The leaves are powdery between his fingers, minute scratches dotting his bare arms as he works. His knees crack and pop by the time he stands and a curtain of crushed leaves fall from his lap.

It's little work dragging the large branch all the way back to the clearing, a deep mark left by its slightly sharp end marking his trail into the soft dirt. The memory of a dog with shinning eyes following the candy tail he'd left makes a shiver run down his spine. He drops the stick and runs back to smudge the tracks away.

"No trace," Greg whispers to himself, lifting the stick onto his shoulder instead. It makes walking a bit harder, but he manages to cross the stream and get back to the clearing where Sara is. It's far darker than when he started, and the crickets are already chirping by the time he emerges.

"Uh-oh."

Greg stumbles down the rest of the way and comes to sit beside Sara. She's slumped over, shirt sleeves torn to create bandages and one pant leg rolled up to her knee. The foot is almost entirely covered with bandages now, and is too swollen to fit into her tennis shoes. Greg leaves the stick beside the older girl and pushes against her shoulders until she finally lies back on the grass. Her one shoe is hanging on her neck by the shoelaces, dirt from its soles getting onto the front of her shirt.

"Sara? Your shirt's getting dirty, so I'll carry your shoe for a while." She only stirs at his voice. Greg shrugs and leans over to untie the shoelaces and he clutches at the tennis shoe and places it squarely between them. "It's too early for a nap, but you can sleep if you want to. I won't bother you."

The sky above is barely dark enough to be called night time, and Greg can see the barest hints of a half-moon in the blueness. He's never sleepy at this hour, and his clothes really are too thin for the fall time, but he manages to close his eyes and fall asleep.

* * *

It's the cold that wakes Sara up.

Moist dirt and crushed up leaves stick to her arms and the backs of her knees, some of it itching just beneath her eyes. She doesn't move to rub them off though, eyes closed and body still stiff with sleep. Her bottom half is especially numb and she's barely able to wriggle her toes.

She tries to guess where she is; fingers feeling the dirt and damp between each digit. It's obviously not her bed, or her brother's bed (which is always empty because he's moved out a year ago), and it's not her parents' or friends' familiar plush car seats. And even the smell of the woods that surely surrounds her is different from the usual camping spot her family takes her to every summer. It has a very distinct scent she can't describe; strangely familiar and filled with decay.

Sara is still debating whether or not she's in one of those haunted forests when something rustles beside her.

It comes from her right side, and her eyes snap open immediately, arms tensing to hold her body upright. Her bottom half in still numb and her hands dig sharp divots in the ground as she pulls herself away. A dark shape is a meter away from her, maybe some sort of animal from the frequent movement. Leaves cover almost every inch of it and they glow faintly in the starless night. Sara grips the stick tighter and raises it above her head _. If this thing turns out to be a fucking bear I'm running._

The stick _whooshes_ above and she's an inch away from _lightly_ tapping the thing awake when a gust of wind bends down to pluck the leaves off of it. Some of the dirt and leaves get caught in her knotted black hair, but she doesn't notice and crawls closer. Tufts of light brown hair peek out from the remaining leaves and the stark white of his shirt contrasts heavily with the dark earth.

The wind must've blown away some of the clouds above, because the half-moon slips out of her cocoon of heavy clouds and lights up the clearing Sara's in just enough for her to distinguish the little boy's pinched face. Her fingers loosen across the stick and then she _remembers._

Remembers walking through the forest, getting her ankle sprained (which was a bit embarrassing since Greg had jumped over the log without incident), and falling asleep waiting for the kid to find her a walking stick. Sara squints and yes, the stick she's holding is probably the one he's spent hours looking for. She can't believe she's forgotten all that. Especially the part about falling asleep while practically babysitting her best friend's little brother.

"Greg?"

They can't stay here for any longer without a fire, she knows. It's too dark and the cold is already making Greg sniffle and sneeze in his sleep.

Sara stabs the stick shallowly into the dirt and pulls herself up, her ankle protesting immediately. Her knees knock into each other as she reaches down to grasp Greg's shoulder, shaking it a little harder than necessary. She spots the little scratches on his arms and frowns. "Greg? Hey, I'm gonna look for something to start a fire with. You've got to stay here until I come back."

He blinks his bleary eyes open and nods. "Do I have to get up?"

"You can sleep. Here," Sara grunts and she leans against the stick, hands holding the boy's much smaller ones. She blows a warm breath across the freezing fingers and rubs them together. "Do that when you're getting too cold. You can stick your arms into your shirt too."

"Aye, captain!" Greg grins sleepily and salutes.

Sara straightens and is about to turn away when she remembers. "Thanks for the walking stick by the way."

But Greg's already asleep by then, and she smiles one last time before awkwardly making her way into the woods. Her right foot is swollen and purple and does absolutely _nothing_ as she moves, the leg it's attached to heavy and practically just a weight attached to her side. But she's tried having a broken arm a year ago, and everything else after that really pales in comparison to the feeling of your cracked bones pressing into your insides.

"Ok—firewood."

There are sticks everywhere, especially when Sara reaches the woods. They range from the softest twigs that don't even snap when she steps on them to whole branches still heavy with leaves that could only be cut with an axe. Sara takes a few medium sized ones, feeling for any moisture that would only make her fire smoke and create very little warmth. They're only branches though, and lack the real heft of thick logs to make any fire last longer than an hour.

Sara sighs; she'll have to look for more later.

"Now, how do I…?" Her gaze flicks from the pile of sticks she's gathered at her feet and the clearing. It's not a terribly long walk, but it's a walk nonetheless. And one she has to take carrying firewood with a sprained foot. Perfect.

She decides to take two handfuls at a time, one threatening to slip past the fingers of her left hand and the other clamped tight between her side and arm. The firewood digs into her sides and the moisture that clings to their surfaces seeps through her clothes and chills her skin. Her teeth rattle just a bit and she grits them against each other to stop them from chattering.

This is a lot harder than she's expected. "Ok. Let's take this slow. One step," her foot sinks into the soft forest floor deeper than necessary, weight transferring too quickly. She feels her body fall forward and the walking stick she's managed to still grasp onto is the only thing that keeps her from falling. (And injuring herself again)

Sara curses under her breath and straightens. She soon adapts a strange sort of waddle that has her body moving sideways towards the clearing. It's much faster than before, but the firewood still slows her down considerably. Sweat slicks up the palms of her hands and pools above her lip in tiny droplets. She could only imagine how fast this would take her if she weren't injured.

The clearing is near enough for her to see Greg's white shirt clearly. He's awake now, playing with her tennis shoe.

"Not in the mood for sleep?" Sara says when she's right in front of him.

Greg looks up at her voice and smiles. "Nope. I'm gonna stay up _aaaaall_ night."

"You probably should get some sleep, especially now that we're… "Sara looks around helplessly. Where _are_ they? "…here _._ But if you can stay awake and not lag behind tomorrow, you can stay up all you want."

" _Yes_!" The boy fist bumps the air. "No one ever lets me stay awake past my bedtime."

"Well," Sara says, hoping she wouldn't become a bad influence on the kid the longer they spend time to together. She's babysat hundreds of times, but never Greg—this is actually the longest they've ever spent time together without Wirt. "Myolder brother Eli always got mad at me for staying up too, so I understand your situation. And you have to promise not to get too sleepy tomorrow; we've got a long way to go."

Greg's eyes shine and he straightens, slamming a hand on his chest, right above his heart. "I promise." He plays up the terrible British accent that makes Sara crack up. Her laugh makes the birds that sleep above them crow and coo angrily, their dark shapes ruffling their feathers.

Her next words are whispers: "Alright, I believe you. But we've got to keep quiet or else these birds will get _really_ mad."

Greg nods and moves to sit beside her. He keeps her quiet company as she arranges the firewood into a rugged tepee and makes a bow out of a fallen stick and her shoelace. She's glad her parents enrolled her in a Girl Scout troupe in first grade; the instructions for starting a fire are still partially fresh in her mind. None of the wood she's gathered is ideally flat enough, but she makes do with some sturdy bark.

Finding all the other things her Scout Master listed down years ago is easy, but getting the spark of flame she needs to start a fire isn't. Greg's already dozing against her back when she _finally_ gets a spark that catches on the tinder and kindling. The warmth is immediate and orange light illuminates their surroundings.

"Oh. Who are you?"

Sara startles at Greg's voice. "What?"

She turns a little and sees the kid pick up something from the ground. It takes time for her eyes to adjust, and she sees a black…turtle? It's a small thing, and has an old candy wrapper stuck to its shell. Greg opens his palm to see it better and grins as if he's seeing an old friend.

"Greg? Hey, I don't think—"

"I know where we are now!"

"W-What? What are you talking about?"

Greg waddles up from his place and stands, grasping Sara's hand. "Wirt and I have been here before! We met a talking bluebird, a yarn witch, and a girl that turns into a monster—"

"Wait. When did this happen?" Sara knows Greg always had an overactive imagination, but he's never been to a forest or on a camping trip. And how could he recognize a black turtle?

"Three years ago, I think—on Halloween."

Sara freezes. Three years ago was the accident. "Greg. You weren't in the woods on Halloween three years ago."

"But we were! This is the Unknown and we spent a week here, but no one remembers and Wirt says that we shouldn't tell anyone about it; but _you're_ here now, so I can tell you everything!" Greg opens his arms wide and smiles, giddier than Sara's ever seen him.

She's never known about this. During their brief time being a couple, Wirt has approached her a few times about what happened on that river years ago. He's always stopped himself mid-sentence, which Sara now looks back on as strange. Everyone's moved on by then, and the topic of them almost drowning was hard to approach. _Maybe he's wanted to tell me all along._

But talking bluebirds? Yarn witches? That can't all be true. It's all too crazy.

"Wait a second—"

And then a light flashes in the woods. It's brighter than their campfire, and lights up the clearing they're in. Sara tenses and stands up, pulling Greg closer.

"I think we should leave." A tall shadow passes right in front of the light. "Right now."

"Why?" Greg tugs his arm loose. "Maybe it's the Woodsman."

The noise of an axe swinging down on wood makes Sara flinch. No one sane can possibly be out chopping wood at this hour. She grabs Greg's hand again and kicks sand into their fire. "Ok. Let's go."

"But…"

"C'mon. Someone out in the woods late at night always spells bad news." Sara bites her lip and looks around. The light is coming closer, and all the trees look exactly the same. She decides that going anywhere but near the light would be best and sets out deeper into the woods, Greg tugging along behind her.

"But Sara, we're also in the woods late at night."

That makes her pause. The kid has a point. "Well, we're lost, and I'm pretty sure we're not crazy axe-wielding guys."

"I don't think it's a guy."

"What…" Sara looks back to where Greg is already staring at. The light is already closer, and the figure of whoever's holding it is shadowed clearly enough for Sara to see. It's hard to pinpoint a gender, but it's tall, and holding an axe. Her breath hitches in her throat and she almost slips trying to walk faster. "Ok. Armed killer chasing after us; not exactly how I imagined my death going."

Greg pulls her back and stands still. "I think I know where we are."

"That's nice, now we've got to _go."_ Sara pauses, mulling over the kid's words. "Wait, did you say you actually know where this is? _"_

"Yeah!" Greg shakes off her hand and goes ahead, jumping over every rock and root. "The trees have changed, but I remember this path. It'll lead us straight to the Woodsman's house!"

And then he goes running off, straight into the darkness. Sara does a double take. _Oh my God. I let a little kid run off alone. I'm so screwed._

"Greg!" Her foot rings painfully as she traverses a thicket and sees Greg's small shape faintly ahead of her. "Greg! Hey, come back!"

"Hurry up Sara!" His little voice comes bouncing back, the shape turning around to wait for her. Sara grinds her teeth together and makes it close enough for her to see Greg clearly. He's just a few meters ahead of her now, and she almost jumps out of her skin when he disappears behind a tree for a second.

The light is getting brighter.

"Run, run, _run_!" Sara hisses to herself, eyes wide. She fights the scream of pain when her injured foot brushes past a tree root and she approaches the edge of the woods, blue moonlight cutting through the trees.

Greg is already out there, crossing a stream that runs along the side of some old house.

The stream is a fast one, an inky black snake in the night. A number of things float along its current; ranging from twigs to large branches and a truckload of dead leaves. Light bounces on all their surfaces, some of the larger branches casting dry and sharp ended shadows — snagging-onto-your-clothes-and-toppling-you-into-the water sharp. Sara feels her throat constrict with fear.

"Be careful!" She cries, not caring that the crazy maniac running after them could probably hear her.

But the kid's already on the other side, wobbling slightly on the last stone before jumping onto the yellowing grass. Sara glares at her foot when she arrives at the stream's bank, breaths coming in short gasps when she places her uninjured foot on the first stone. It's slippery as hell, and the water rushing past soaks through her tennis shoe the second it's near enough. The stream itself isn't very deep, but the current is strong enough to pull full-sized tree branches Sara's size. And they don't last very long; the rocks ahead soon break them up into tiny pieces that quickly go under the water without so much as a bubble to show their terror.

Her stick is the next to plunge into the water. Droplets of murky water color her shirt a darker shade of its original light green and mud flecks her torn pants, the water marking exactly on the stick's length how deep the stream is. Sara licks her lips; it's much deeper than she's expected. " _Shit."_

She pulls her bad leg onto the first stone. The trees behind her cast a low shadow that muddles into the water, lit up by the approaching light. Her teeth grind inside her mouth and she stops all thought long enough for her to hop across three slippery stones without fail. She stops at the last stone, chest tight and lips thin on her tightly closed mouth.

Adrenaline enough to melt the pain of her sprained limp pumps in her veins and she tenses her leg muscles before launching over the gap between the last rock and the grassy bank. Her body hangs in the air for a second before her knees slam into the soft dirt with barely a thud. Pain shoots up her foot, her hands pulling up handfuls of grass and dirt. Clumps of grass heavy with dirt hang in her grip as she pulls herself to stand. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and the sight of Greg trying in vain to open the house's front door ahead of her blurs.

With a burst of speed, Sara bounds toward the gristmill, which looks more and more abandoned the nearer she gets. A huge wheel spins wearily in the stream that she's just crossed, but there are no lights in the windows and the chimney is not spouting even the tiniest bit of smoke. It just screams dangerous. But a creepy house that looks a hundred-percent haunted is always better than a maniac chasing after you. Sara picks up the pace, stopping just in front of Greg.

"I can't—" Greg huffs, pushing on the wooden door with all his weight, "get it open. It's stuck."

"Move aside; I'll get it open— probably."

Sara usually uses her foot to deliver a kick that could break an ordinary door down, but with her balance currently untrustworthy, she decides to use her shoulder. Pain blooms on her shoulder and the curse she tries in vain to swallow slips out loud enough for Greg to hear. The little boy cocks his head at the words and Sara just knows that he's kept it for future use somewhere in his head. The door swings open.

Sara pops her head inside to inspect the dark interior before looking back out. The light is approaching the tree line. "Jesus. Ok, let's get you inside."

But Greg is already squeezing past her and into the house, Sara following slowly and shouldering the door closed again. She sees the kid jumping up and down and chirping on about a dog and candy camouflage. Sara would find it incredibly adorable under normal circumstances, and even then she had the urge to laugh when the kid picked up the fireplace's rickety metal screen and used it as a shield, but the urge is gone in a second. She nears Greg and only then does she actually notice what he's saying.

"Kitty followed my candy trail to the mill, and then _crashed through the door_ –wholly molly!"

Sara adjusts the boy in her grip, holding him aloft. He's heavy, but being carried makes him laugh and momentarily forget whatever he was saying.

"Now, where to put..." Her eyes scan the darkness: a cold fireplace, no furniture, hard wood floors that don't squeak, and the same strange smell in the woods permeating the very walls. They finally stop on a staircase leading to the house's second floor, a loose floorboard creaking when she bounces Greg in her arms. She places him on the first step. "I need you to get up these stairs and find somewhere to hide. Can you do that for me?"

"Yup! Who are we hiding from?"

"Oh, no one important," Sara says, leaning down to pry the loose floorboard from the floor. She hands it to Greg. "Just some dude carrying a flashlight. Hit him with this if they ever get on top of the stairs."

Greg grins conspiratorially. "I'll knock 'im out the second he's on those stairs!"

"Good luck then, soldier." Sara manages a half-smile and a salute. "Get yourself a good hiding place and wait for me to call you. And please stay _quiet_."

The kid nods and rushes up the stairs, feet pounding loudly against the wood. Every step makes a shudder run up Sara's spine. She doesn't bother to scold him, and makes her way to the wall. There's one window that faces the woods, and she could see the light already past the trees and almost to the stream. She rests all of her weight on the wall beside the jammed front door.

Moss and soft little saplings grow beneath the door and reach even the metal hinges. Her kick earlier dislodged most of the bigger tendrils from the rusted hinges, but the plants growing bellow made the door a little sticky and would give Sara some time to know when someone would come in. Her chest is already heaving with over-exertion, and both her feet are barely working now, the wall and walking stick the only things keeping her upright that moment. And the thought of her teeth-grinding being loud enough for the maniac to hear makes the sweat running down her spine feel like an ice cube slipped into her shirt.

Light filters through the one window bright enough to light up the house's interior. Sara's seen one of Wirt's interior design textbooks before, and the peeling wallpaper and creaky door just screams of a time _way_ before their own. She would've liked to think about the truth of Greg's statement about knowing the place, but at the moment she stops the slew of information that gets into her head and focuses on getting herself to stand (which has gotten harder and harder to do the more the pain sets in).

"Fucking foot," she flexes her toes experimentally and winces. "Work properly for once."

The sound of someone splashing through water makes Sara stop, hands tightening on the walking stick. She raises it above her head, breathing in deep. Her head is mostly focused on listening for the maniac's footsteps, but she can't help finally recognizing the scent that floats around everywhere in this place. It comes from the woods, and even here it tickles her nose; a smoky odour, like dying roses.


	3. soggy wallpaper

**A/N: Yeah, I'm adding in another ship. Hope you guys like it, though!**

Hiding isn't easy.

You have to find a perfect place to hide in, and when you finally do, you have to stay there for the longest time before someone finds you (and a perfect hiding place is usually somewhere small and uncomfortable or else it isn't perfect) which is fine, except for _how boring it gets_. Greg is currently suffering a severe case of _boredomitis_ right now, along with a sore bottom for sitting too long. His belly started to ache a little about two hours ago, right when Sara woke him up; but now that he's between a peeling-wallpaper wall and a bookshelf, it's like a roaring car engine. He winces and shifts. A strip of soggy wallpaper flops down onto his head and he pulls it off the wall, moving the heavy piece of floorboard from his lap to look at the piece in his hand.

It smells like old socks, and it's too dark to see anything beyond the fact that it's maybe white and has a pretty pattern he can't discern. "Hm. Needs some light."

But there isn't any, and Sara asked him to be quiet, so Greg crunches the soggy piece in his fist and leans back. That's when he feels it—a soft, pliable thing pressing against his neck. It tickles at first, and he giggles, scrunching up his nose and clamping a hand on his mouth. The movement pushes him further into the wall, and the thing squishes slightly behind him, something cold and liquid trickling into his shirt. It makes him shiver and he feels goosebumps rise on his skin. He leans forward in the tight little space.

Greg can't see it, but a little sapling twines between his searching fingers, slightly softer that before from his weight pressing on it earlier. The same cold liquid gets onto his fingertips and makes them sticky. "Ew. Now what is mysterious substance, Watson?" The imaginary doctor Watson shakes his head and Greg presses on, taking a firm sniff of his fingers. The stench is enough to make him gag.

"Poison, alright." He swipes his fingers on his shirt and huddles back down again, deciding that Sara would be able to guess what the weird liquid is later.

He's half-way back into the comatose state people suffering from _boredomitis_ get into after more than one minute when his eyes flutter open. Light floods his vision, all of it coming from the window on one side of the room. It lights up one corner of the wall, and the soggy wallpaper turns out to be little bluebirds, each row of birds separated by a white line spotted with black. It also reveals that he's in an old bedroom, planks of timber littering the floor. All of it is taken from the many beads that line the walls, but not all of the beds are dismantled, though all are free of their feather mattresses or pillows.

And of course, everything is covered in red-leafed saplings.

They get everywhere, from the floorboards and between the window pane spaces. The whole beds are crawling with tiny branches, the floor around them littered with fallen leaves. Greg feels panic fill his chest for a moment and he scrambles to stand. He's always remembered the feeling of Edelwood branches sucking the life out of him; even if he never thinks about it.

"Uhhh…" He shifts on the floor awkwardly, hoping in the very back of his head that the light would go out again just to cover up the oily saplings. A hard lump forms in his throat and he fights to keep himself rooted onto the floor. He blows into his palms to keep them warm like Sara's told him and turns to face the bright window, ignoring the way black oil drips from the ends of each sapling in the room.

A shadow stands out stark against the light. "Woodsman?"

It's easy work getting the window open, and the Edelwood branches form a sort of ladder of their criss-crossing tendrils all along the house's wall. Greg squints in the bright light and once he's certain the lumpy figure with an axe in their grip and a pile of branches strapped to their back is really the Woodsman, he hefts one leg over the window's edge. His foot nestles into a crook in the branches. The branches whine and sag away from the wall a bit, roots straining to keep their hold. Oil slicks up his hands and his grip slip-slides on the branch, stomach dropping down to settle beside his feet. He hears a gasp from below.

"What in the world? Good Lord, get down from there!"

"Huh?" Greg shifts, turning to see the figure steadily grow closer. It turns out to be a girl. "Oh. You're a girl! You look a lot like—"

The branches pull away from the wall completely; cracks splitting the planks and spraying splinters all over Greg's front, oil getting into his hair and the stench of it thick in his lungs. Two screams— one Sara's and the other the mystery girl's— echo in his head along with a door slamming from below. He falls for only a second though, a few remaining Edelwood branches cinching around his ankle and keeping him attached to the house's wall. The screams rise in pitch.

"Shi— Greg! Are you ok?"

Sara's face pops up in his upside-down vision, sweat pouring down the sides of her face and leaning on her walking stick. She sends a wary glance at the other girl but reaches out to him first. "Hey, come on. I'll catch you."

"I'll do it."

The girl puts down the axe and oil lamp she's holding, romping through the dusty path until Greg's able to see her. She's younger than Sara, sporting a heavy grey skirt and a long-sleeved shirt peeking from just beneath a dark cloak much like Wirt's old navy blue one back home. The hem of her skirt brushes the ground as she moves to stand beside Sara. "I'm stronger." She sends Sara a quick glance, shrugging a bit. "And— um, taller."

"We don't even know you," Sara says, finally turning to face the girl. "Who goes out into the woods carrying a fuc—ah, _freaking_ axe around with them?"

"The axe is for protection. And trees."

Greg gets tired craning his neck to listen to the two girls arguing and puffs out a breath. He's sure to be in the Unknown; only folks from the Unknown wear the freaky clothing he's only seen in history books, and the sky is just as he's remembered, dark and forever with a half-moon hanging on an invisible string. _But something's off this time_ , Greg thinks, wriggling a little. He can feel it in the air and in the trees looking completely foreign—like someone's redesigned the whole wood. _Like there's a new—_

The Edelwood branches creak sharply and snap.

Oil splatters everywhere, even on Sara and the mystery girl, who've managed to scream right at the same time as well as catch him in perfect synch. Well, they move in perfect synch, but smacking their foreheads together is hardly perfect. Greg is lowered slowly, and he busies himself with wiping the smelly oil on his clothes and grinning at the wincing girls. He's certain Sara wants to curse right now; by the way she's biting her lip and wrinkling her brow. He gets the last of the oil off and grins at her. "It's ok to say bad words, Sara. I promise I won't tell Wirt about it later."

Sara smiles, about to say something, when the other girl stiffens. "Did you just say Wirt?" She straightens and mirrors Sara's wary look. "Who are you two?"

"We can ask the same for you. You still didn't say why you were out here in the first place!" Greg feels Sara's small hands tightening on his shoulders. He knows that feeling, Wirt's done that a few times after the Unknown, and he's waiting for Sara's signal to run at any moment when the mystery girl sighs, slumping her shoulders. She blows out a breath and runs a hand through her fluffy mound of brown hair. "Ugh. Now I know how Father feels."

The girl extends a hand. "I'm Anna." When Sara doesn't take her hand, she adds, "I'm out here looking for my Father, the Woodsman. We good?"

" _Absolutely!_ I know the Woodsman too," Greg steps up to grasp the girl's offered hand. "I'm Greg and this is Sara. We're lost."

"Oh yeah, I know that. Everyone's lost these days," Anna looks at the sprawling woods around them. "We should get inside."

She turns to get her axe and lamp, gesturing to the old mill house. "Inside."

Greg makes to follow her, when he notices Sara hanging behind. He pouts and walks back toward her. "Sara? Come on, let's get inside. Anna's a good person, don't worry." He reaches up and grabs at her hand Her skin is cold and he's not sure if it's all because of the cold. She's looking blankly at the ground, grip tight on the walking stick and teeth gritting. "Hey—"

"What's wrong over there? The house's not so ruined; we can stay here for the night!" Anna's head pops out from the door, the wood bundle unstrapped from her back and transferred into her arms. The chimney is already spitting smoke and a nice warm glow highlights her features. Sara seems to shake her head and she ruffles Greg's hair. "I'm fine. Just a little sleepy."

Greg yawns theatrically. "Me too."

"I thought you wanted to stay up 'til morning." She's smiling, but Greg can tell that it's tired and a bit forced. His own grin falters just a bit.

"I changed my mind."

* * *

Beatrice's abandoned house is a little drafty, but the roaring fire makes up for it tenfold. Anna is the one who put it together, but she lets the dark-skinned girl and the little boy huddle beside it for a while. They're both ridiculously under-dressed for autumn, with the boy that's introduced himself as Greg wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers that reach just above his knees. The short girl is hardly in better shape. If anything, she's in a worse one: one shoe soaked through and the other hanging on her neck because it wouldn't fit on her swollen ankle. And the only word Anna could use to describe her wardrobe is just plain _torn._ Every hem is savagely ripped into bandages for her ankle, and dirt browning the strange cloth her trousers are made of. They're possibly the sorriest pair she's seen.

"So," Greg begins later, finally turning away from the fire. Anna looks up from the Edelwood branch she's poking at and smiles softly. The little boy barely survived a fall, was cold, and along with his multitude of nicks across his skin, was most probably hungry too. But that didn't stop him from grinning from ear-to-ear. " _You're_ the Woodsman's daughter. Me and Wirt have been wondering what you looked like."

Anna couldn't help flushing a little. Almost everyone didn't know what she looked like; living in the woods made her almost seem like a fairy-tale character to everyone else. "Well, I hope you're not disappointed."

"'Course not!" Here Greg seems to remember something and bites his lip. "Sorry for, um, destroying your house. Again."

The silence stretches out; Greg still biting his lip, Sara still staring into the fire, and Anna a few feet away, sitting on the floor, oil blackening her fingers. _Destroying_ her _house?_ What did he mean by that? Her house is in the middle of the woods, unseen by anyone other than its residents and Beatrice, and most of all, in perfect (or as perfect as a wooden cabin could get) condition. She watches Greg's eyes flick from the huge crack across the wall behind them and then at the splinters scattered everywhere, thinking of a way to respond when it hits her. " _Oh._ Oh, I get it now."

Of course; it should've been obvious. Father's always been a bit silent about his stint as lantern-bearer last autumn, but he's told Anna about using Beatrice's then-abandoned homestead to mill the oil. The boys must've gotten the whole thing mixed up. Anna meets Greg's— and now Sara's gaze since the girl's turned around to listen to them, and shakes her head. "Crackers, I don't live here. My house's back in the woods somewhere." _Somewhere I won't be seeing again soon_ , she thinks, looking back at the tangled knot of trees through the cracked wall. "Wait, what'd you mean _again?"_

"Well, me and Wirt might've destroyed your—I mean, whoever this house belongs to—mill a while back. We didn't mean it though!" Greg gets up and starts to gesture about his little body wild enough for Anna to lean an inch closer lest he fall in his excitement. "See, there was this huge dog chasing us, and then it got stuck under the water wheel and barfed up an icky black turtle. Gosh, the Woodsman was so mad at us—"

"Hey, I think we should give Anna a little break." Sara tugs on the boy's pant-leg. "We're all tired, and I think it's best we hit the hay now and leave the… the stories for tomorrow."

"But didn't she say she was looking for her Dad? What happened to the Woodsman?" Greg tries one last time, stubbornly tugging against the older girl's grip. Sara's face is half-way hidden by her dark hair, but Anna can see the fatigue heaving in her lungs and in the sweat that darkens her clothes. She feels a knot form in the pit of her stomach. Father's been gone for a week now, or longer, since she's spent the past two days trying to navigate the unfamiliar woods to get to Beatrice's house. Anna's probably the only one to know about his disappearance, and telling someone about it sounds great, but it's obvious Sara can't really handle any more surprises.

So she sighs internally, meets Sara's fleeting gaze, and shrugs. "Your friend's right. I'll tell you two all about what's going on—but only in the morning."

The little boy looks infinitely disappointed, but he doesn't whine like Anna's expecting him to, and instead shuffles down Sara's side and lays his head on her lap. He looks up at her through lidded and sleepy eyes. "So we'll look for the Woodsman tomorrow? And you'll tell me who this house belongs to?"

Anna blinks. "Oh, definitely," she unclasps the fastenings of her moss-green cloak and hands it to Sara. "Here, you can use this; I've got enough layers to last through the night. And feel free to throw a few sticks into the fire when it gets a bit too chilly." Her hands wrap around the leather straps keeping the firewood she's gathered earlier in a nice bundle and haul it to lean beside the fireplace. It's a bit too close to the fire, but it'll be easier for any of them to throw some of its twigs into the fire throughout the night. "Alright, I think that's about everything."

They settle into a cozy silence. Anna bundles herself up against the wall nearest the stairs, narrowly falling into the hole left from Sara tearing out a floorboard. It's cold, but sleeping on barren dirt ground surrounded by shadowy trees really makes a hard floor and a bit of wind seem like paradise. And the fire's brighter than she's ever seen it while out in the woods; firewood just seems to catch better indoors. The company's decent too, miles better than the red-eyed squirrels and the ever-hooting owls she's almost grown accustomed to staring down at her from their tree-branch-homes. The pair is a little new to the Unknown, but Greg's someone Father sometimes brings up, and Anna's glad to see he's still the same laughing ball of joy and mischief from Father's stories. He's a little older than the young child she's expecting, and it isn't an older brother that accompanies him, the gangly teenager replaced with an exotic-looking girl with a bad leg. Anna's always supposed that everyone comes out of the Unknown changed each time, but she's never realized that they come back so different too.

She yawns, thinking over how _she_ might change if she ever gets a chance of getting out of this place. In the back of her head, she can almost distinguish Greg's kid voice wishing them a good night.

* * *

Anna's noticed it for a while now; the fact that she isn't the only one unable to sleep. Granted, she managed to get a few hours of rest before gasping awake from a night-terror she still can't quite discern (though it's been happening for weeks now, again and again like the ticking of a clock's metal hands), but the other person currently suffering from insomnia surely hasn't gotten a wink of sleep. They're barely visible in the dimmer light of the fire, orange highlighting their scrunched up shape and spilling shadows dark as tar across the opposite wall. Anna bites her lip to supress her yawn. She tries to find her voice from the folds of her numb, sleep addled mind.

"Can't sleep either?" Sleep laces her words.

Sara startles at the sound though, the older girl flinching as if she was a cat disturbed while enjoying their afternoon dish of milk. She coughs into her fist awkwardly and adjusts Anna's cloak over Greg's sleeping form. "Yeah. Um, I can't stop thinking about those things Greg said earlier. I can't stop thinking about them."

"You mean about him knowing my Father?"

"Not just that. Everything's happening so fast and just a second ago I was planning to slam a stick in your face and…" Sara supresses a groan and passes a hand over her face. Anna notices that dark half-moons colour the underside of the older girl's eyes. "Can I sit beside you? I'm worried that I might wake Greg."

Anna nods and Sara searches around her before pulling out a walking stick and jauntily making her way over there. She's great on her feet, even with one dragging behind her, and gets to Anna's side without making a sound. Anna helps her to sit against the wall. "Well, I thought you two were crazy escaped convicts the first time I saw Greg hanging off the wall."

That manages to make Sara laugh, and it's a hearty, honest laugh that warms Anna's cold bones and makes the draft dissipate the slightest bit. Sara does stop though, and pulls her legs up to her chin, wincing and covering her face with her hands. Her sigh comes out in a cold puff of air between her fingers.

"I never thought I'd be in a situation like this." Anna hears her say something foreign-sounding, and guesses that it might be some sort of swear-word from wherever she comes from. Greg did mention her having a sort of liking to them earlier. "I don't know what to do at all, goddammit."

"Hey," Anna places a tentative hand on Sara's shoulder. It's cold through her ripped shirtsleeve. "Don't say that. You managed to find a house, didn't you? And, um, caught Greg when he fell off the wall."

Sara sniffles bitterly. She isn't crying per se, but her teeth are gritting so tight she almost can't speak clearly. "But Greg needs his brother. I don't know what to do with a little kid; I left him alone for a minute and he ended up _climbing out a window._ I taught him more curses than he's ever heard on T.V., like what kind of person does that?" She shakes her head, and Anna thinks she might be done, but the older girl continues, hands still hiding the worry on her face. "And we're _here_ of all places, and I don't know anything about this place, let alone how to get back home. But he knows so much about it, which is strange, and he says he was here three years ago, but that can't be true because he was busy trying not to _drown_ in a fucking river three years ago."

A silence thick and gritty like mud descends on them. Anna wants desperately to pull her hand away from Sara's shoulder and give her some alone time, but it's far too late for that now since she's already placed it there, and she can't really just pull away like she doesn't want to help her at all. Crackers, she _really_ needs practice talking to people other than just Father and Beatrice. And though she doesn't mean to, Anna sighs and hangs her head.

"Oh," Sara moves away an inch and Anna's hand slips off her shoulder. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to unload all of that on you; you can just forget about it…I'll be fine, ah, eventually. I'll just be going no—"

Anna hears Sara's walking stick scrape against the ground and she scrambles to grab onto the girl's wrist. The action makes them pause for a second, and Anna can feel the flush creeping up her neck and across her cheeks. She's glad her back's facing the fire, because she's certain her face is shadowed when she takes a breath and speaks. "No, don't leave!" Her voice rings sharply in the night air and they both flinch and glance at Greg's direction; the boy's moved around a bit, but he's still tucked sweetly into the cloak's warm material. Anna schools her voice into a whisper and speaks again, "I-I mean, um, I'm really new to talking to people, and I _want_ to help you, but I really don't know how, and you're _so pretty_ I kind of forget what I'm about to say—"

The last few words slam into both of them like a cannonball. Anna feels Sara's wrist stiffen slightly in her grip and the flush on her own cheeks is hot enough to cook sausages on and her chest's exploding with different emotions because Sara really _is_ pretty. Beautiful even, with her button nose and dark lips that manage to stay perked up at the corners just the slightest bit even when she's brooding over something. But Anna's not supposed to tell her that, and she's already planning to start digging her own grave outside when the other girl _laughs._ Actually laughs, her plump lips finally curling into a full-blown smile that makes Anna's warm cheeks grow impossibly warmer.

"Pretty, huh? No one's said that in a while." Sara titters a bit and eases herself back down. "You remind me a bit of Wirt; in a cute and slightly awkward way. He was always bad with people he didn't know."

Anna starts a bit when she mentions _cute_ ; but Sara is from a world where the Beast never existed, were the moon actually had different cycles of fullness, and (according to Father) black boxes filled with color pictures that actually _move_ , so Sara's probably used to calling other girls cute before. She doesn't mean it, but Anna deflates a bit, smiling quick enough to cover it up when Sara turns to look at her. "I've never talked to anyone other than Father and Beatrice before, and _they've_ never broken down crying in front of me."

"Hey, I was not crying!" Sara laughs beneath her breath and shoulders Anna softly. They both share a smile, both seeing only half of the other's faces in the dim firelight.

"You know what I mean," Anna says, nervously running a hand through her hair. Her fingers brush against her scalp, and her fingers curl at the dull pain that comes from it. "Ugh, I forgot about that…"

She hears Sara move to face her. "Forgot what?"

"I bumped against you when we caught Greg, remember?" Anna just barely sees Sara nodding; her prodding fingers barring her view. "Well, apparently, it gave me a bruise. And it hurts; a lot more than I thought it would."

Another laugh permeates the air around them. "Funny. I've got one too." Sara sighs and leans back against the wall again. "It doesn't hurt as bad as long as you don't think about it." Anna winces one more time before finally leaving the lump of irritated flesh alone, leaning back as well. The quiet between them is calm and Anna admittedly almost falls to sleep a few times, but then she remembers and leans over to meet Sara's wandering gaze. "Father told me about Wirt and Greg's last visit and I think you're the better keeper of the two by what I've heard from him."

"Thanks," Sara nods. "That's actually something I can attest to since Wirt _was_ kinda an ass to his brother years ago. I was actua— WAIT."

"What?"

"Oh my God, I'm an idiot."

"Excuse me?" Anna feels her body tense, unsure about what Sara's about to do; when the girl plants a hand over her face and groans.

"Gosh, I'm here whining about my problems when you've just lost your fucking _Dad_. You're probably worried sick about him, and now you're worrying about me—"

"Wait—wait, wait. It's _fine."_

"What d'you mean fine? Your Dadis _missing_ ; I'd go half-mad if that happens to me."

"Father's always gone for too long." Sara sends her a questioning look, so Anna continues. "I mean, he's usually not home for a few days, so I only go out looking for him when four or more days pass without him coming home. And I usually find him on the other side of some stream he can't cross because it's too strong or he's taking the long route to the cabin," here Anna cuts off and sends a warily look at the trees outside. "But two days ago, when I headed out to look for him, I noticed that the trees looked different."

"Like, scary horror-movie different?"

Anna doesn't have any clue what a movie is, but she shrugs anyway and smiles a bit. "Aye, scary is one way of putting it. The trees looked different from usual and…" Her voice pitter-patters out like morning rain.

"And? Why'd you stop?" Sara leans forward, eyes glittering in the red-orange light.

"I don't want to spoil the story. I promised Greg I'd tell you both everything I know about Father and what's happening in the Unknown, right?" Anna decides to be risky and winks at the older girl. "So I am going to tell you _and_ him the story tomorrow when we're all rested."

What comes out of Sara's mouth next is whispered, but high-pitched and laced with disgruntlement. "What?! Come on, I'm not even sleepy yet! And you've gotten me all excited for a stupid cliff-hanger."

Anna stifles a laugh in her hand and lies back down on the floor, cheek pressing against the slightly rough surface. "Goodnight, Sara." She sing-songs into the dark.

"Aw, screw you." Sara says, and Anna knows it to be one of the girl's curse-words, and she's worried Sara might be very cross with her indeed when she hears a bit of scuffling and a little chuckle. Sara is standing again, and limps to where Greg is and returns to her previous position beside the boy. Anna's glad (and relieved) to see that she's smiling and even glad-er when she hears Sara say this a minute later: "Goodnight, Anna. And you better tell the goddamn story _great_ tomorrow."

Neither of their dreams is clouded by nightmares that night.

* * *

Petrichor, blood, and oil are the only smells Beatrice registers every time she inhales. It's maddening, actually, but she knows it's better than the cold air that whistles through her lungs during the few moments she grows weak. At least with the dirt under her nails and the burden of the bone-branches that grow from her back like hideous wings she can anchor herself to the ground and reality. Because reality's all she has if she looks closely enough, terrible reality that's filled with loss, and pain, _so much pain and cold— enough to freeze her heart and soul._

Beatrice knows what's happening to her. Knows the voice that whispers to her thoughts and knows that _it's_ the reason her eyes are dripping with oil and her fingers itch to gather some firewood for the campfire that she's too weary to try putting out.

But she can't let _it_ win, can't let _it_ win any more than _it_ already has, and sleeps every night since falling into the clearing with the dim campfire (that burns on dimly for an eternity with only a tiny branch as fuel) in bone-chilling cold. _It_ never lets her die from hypothermia, anyway.

She can feel _it_ now, rattling her bones and pulling at her hair to be let out. _It's_ always hungry, always searching, always pushing for the tinniest crack or fissure in Beatrice's wall. A wall she's loathe admitting _it's_ broken through a couple of times. And when she finally manages to fix it all up again, the little patch of clearing she's in is just the tinniest bit larger and devoid of trees. She hates those times the most.

"I'm not letting you out again."

 _It_ answers in barely a whisper in her jumbled-up head. The invisible hand tightens in her muddy hair and pulls, her head tipping back slightly. _"Hm. You've bent to my will before. You'll do it again soon."_

Beatrice breathes. Petrichor, blood, and oil fill her nose. All is well, she's still in control. She doesn't respond and lets her eyes flutter shut. The wood whistles and rustles around her.

" _The little one's back, you know."_

Her eyes snap open, and she can feel a shiver run down her spine and up the branches growing from her back. "What?"

She can't stop _it,_ and _it_ manages to get the tiniest bit of itself through the wall and blot images plucked from somewhere into her head. They're of Greg, tiny, defenceless Greg, rooting through leaves and looking for something. The image shifts to him sleeping beside a dim fire, some girl with hair black as night huddled beside him protectively. Beatrice feels the familiar scents that clog her lungs turn cold and quickly shuts _it_ out. Her eyes she hadn't felt she'd closed slowly open again.

The woods around her are split perfectly in half, the trees witling away to make a path. Beatrice chokes on her thick breath and feels oil trickling down her blackened cheeks. "No, I don't want this. Leave him alone." Almost immediately, fresh green saplings shoot out from the earth in quick succession, the plants quickly growing into new trees and the older ones groaning to move over to let the new members fit into the messy tangle that is a wood.

Beatrice moves to stand, pulling up Edelwood branches that always manage to grow up and over her limbs whenever she controls the woods around her. They're always soft and pliable though, and easy to tear through. Not like the Edelwood she;s seen growing over people—those branches are hard as toughened steel.

"You're not getting him," she breathes, almost crumpling when _it_ sends pain twanging through her spine and ringing in her head.

" _You think you can stop me? I am getting his soul, and I know that you want that too, don't you?"_

"No!" Beatrice feels the crumbly dirt crusting in the crevices of her palms and really does fall to her knees, clawing at her back. The creaky branches are the only signs that _it's_ slowly taking over her body. And one of the ways _it_ likes to torment her. "I said no! You're not getting Greg's soul or anyone else's, so you better pack up and leave."

It laughs. _"Keep lying to yourself, Beatrice. I know you've wanted to see Gregory and his infuriating brother ever since they left the Unknown, and why not? Since you've started developing feelings for—"_

"Shut up! Shut up!" Beatrice gnashes her teeth like a mad bull and scratches at her back harsher. Fresh blood warms her cold skin.

" _And it's so cold here, too. Cut him down, and you'll have a warm fire."_

" _Stop talking!_ I am not going to hurt _anyone_! You can't make me!"

" _Oh, I'm not making you. You'll get a soul eventually; if not Gregory's, then someone else's... Someone is bound to find you out here. Quite a lot of people have been traveling into the woods, after all."_

Beatrice screws her eyes shut tight enough for phosphene to pop behind her eyelids, skin prickling and sweat breaking across her skin. _It's_ able to break through her wall sometimes, but she can walk through _its_ front door like a breeze whenever she wants to, tapping into the dusty magic _it's_ got stocked up somewhere to do amazing things. Things like getting people away from her and _it,_ the thing crawling through her head like a worm boring holes through an apple.

And when she gets past that wide-open door, breath comes in short gasps when the trees shift and groan into newfound places. Rivers and streams slither miles away before settling into somewhere new, and the animals screech and crow as the their homes get uprooted from below their feet. Paths get covered up with moss and new paths carve themselves into the earth, vines and roots crunching beneath an invisible force as they're flattened to make a new dirt road. Beatrice hardly feels any resistance when doing this, and _it's_ usually silent when she does. _Probably brooding in some corner of my head_ , she thinks, and opens her eyes.

The woods are changed all around her, the Beast in her head is finally silent, and the pain in her back's dribbled away into nothing. Well, as much as a few bleeding scratches are worth, they're nothing.

Beatrice breathes; the same three scents fill her lungs. _No one's going to find you_ ; she reassures herself, and smiles, revealing sharpened teeth.


	4. Edelwood

**Chapter 4:**

It should be strange, waking up from a ten-hour long slumber still tired down to your bones. But Beatrice is used to, and _expecting_ the fatigue by now, so when she wakes up to the familiar itchy hardness of wooden floors pressing against her cheek, any fear that would've come is replaced with curiosity.

The dirt that weighs down the skirt of her dress is gone, as well as the cracked patches of dry blood that stick to her scalp and forehead. Even the weight of the wooden branch-wings is gone from her back. She tenses and inhales. Warm, delicious air fills her chest, tinged with the smell fresh laundry and old furniture.

"Can't be,"Beatrice says, pushing herself up from the floor of her _old bedroom_ and squinting. It's pitch black everywhere, and only the ache in her chest makes her certain of the place she's in (if she really is there, that is).

 _Dream. It's probably a dream._ She thinks and holds on to that passing thought, repeating it out loud for herself to hear and start to believe. "Just a dream. This is all just a crazy dream."

" _Not quite. A memory would be a better term."_

 _That_ little thought isn't her own. It bounces around the dark room in an infinite echo and Beatrice is sure now of where she is. The Beast is always louder in her dreams than anywhere else.

"What do you mean?" She's far past the point of really fearing the creature now, and her voice rings loud and clear—like birdsong. Her chest constricts at the sound of it.

The Beast doesn't respond to her call and a silence permeated with the all-too-familiar sounds of creaky floorboards falls like a heavy tarp over everything. Beatrice never was prone to dreaming even before the incident, but now that she shares a skull with the old terror of the woods, her few dreams are shared with it too. And in there The Beast is not simply a voice in her head or a pair of bony wings on her back.

Beatrice is about to ask again when the one window in the bedroom suddenly fills with light; enough to illuminate the room like it's mid-morning. Clouds rumble like an empty stomach just outside the bedroom The Beast probably concocted from one of her many memories stocked up somewhere, and while Beatrice adjusts to the glare, she thinks over how it might try to force her into submission this time. But then her eyes pick up something in the light and her thoughts come to a jarring stop.

It's only visible for a split second. The light retreats and soon darkness takes over again, the Edelwood sprouting from between the floorboards diving back into the dark along with the smeared writings on the wall. A crack of thunder loud enough to shake the foundations of the house breaks her train of thought. And, as she soon finds out, breaks the floor too.

Wooden floorboards dip and crash beneath Beatrice's feet, scratchy hardness becoming soft as putty in a second. Beatrice curses and scrambles away, feet sinking an inch into the soft goop that's suddenly replaced the entire floor. Her curses turn into screams when she feels hands grab at her ankles. The hands splash out of the liquid below, tearing holes in her dress with the force of their tugs, pulling her in further. It's when the goop's reached her thighs does she realize that it's oil, black Edelwood oil that coats the hands that reach up to grab at her hair and pull her down, the oil around her sloshing about. Beatrice picks up the sound of the Beast's laughter somewhere in her head, and she thrashes in the hands' grip, splattering oil everywhere. She tries to scream, but the oil's reached her mouth and she chokes instead.

A hand finally manages to latch onto her jaw and pull her head under, her eyes screwing shut. The hand's fingers wriggle between her teeth, prying her mouth open for better purchase, its fingernails digging into the insides of her cheeks until they drew blood. The iron taste of it mixes with the oil that fills her mouth.

In the back of her head, Beatrice hears the Beast's laugh dim and mute the deeper she's pulled into the oil, his laughs replaced with her Mom's familiar voice, going on forever in a loop that's even worse. _Eat you dirt, honey. Eat your dirt. Eat it._

The first thing Beatrice says when she wakes up later is loud enough to startle a few sleeping birds. " _What_ did you do?!"

The Beast laughs mirthlessly in response. _"You're not always in control, Beatrice. You should learn to know that."_

"Um, guys? I found something…weird."

Greg blinks up at Sara, the girl leaning against the stairs' hand rail. It's early morning, way earlier than he's usually up, but the two girls seem used waking up at the crack of dawn and Anna wanted him to tag along when they gathered some food earlier. They've just arrived, berries cradled in a piece of Anna's torn up petticoat and a clod of dirt-encrusted yams tucked under Greg's arm. Sara decided to stay earlier because of her foot, and she must've been poking around the not-belonging-to-the-Woodsman house, because dust is smeared all over her face. And because she found something weird—which only happens if you're poking around somewhere.

"Is it a frog?" Greg shakes away most of the dirt from the yams and places the vegetables onto the floor. "Maybe I can get a new friend for Jason Funderburker!" He trots up the stairs after Sara.

"Uh, no. It's not a frog… it's something a bit weirder than that." Sara looks over Greg's shoulder and exchanges a look with Anna, who's still standing at the door. "You two should come up and check it out."

Anna looks down at the berries in her grip. "You two go ahead. I'll just take care of these and I'll be right there." She reaches down and picks up the yams.

"'Kay," Sara turns back and starts to climb back up the stairs. Greg wipes his dirty hands on his shirt and follows her.

They're halfway up the stairs when Greg remembers. "What about the story Anna's supposed to tell us?" He tugs on Sara's torn and muddy jeans enough to make the older girl turn to face him. Her face lights up at the mention of it, but she quickly covers it up. She coughs into her palm. "I think the story'll have to wait, Greg. Now come on, this'll be like one of those mystery crime shows you love to watch."

Sara reaches over to grab at Greg's wrist and haul his little body up the stairs faster. He's a little disappointed, but he can't help feeling curious. So he picks up the pace and follows as Sara leads them down a small hallway with lined with three doors. One of them is ajar, and Greg recognizes it as the room he hid in last night. His steps unconsciously get heavier. Sara notices and looks down at him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing! I'm just excited, is all." Greg squeaks out, knowing Sara's not gonna fall for it. She sends him a look, but nods and pushes the door open further.

The Edelwood saplings are still there, curling tendrils around everything; and the room's almost exactly the same, save for a huge crack running down the wall. More saplings and roots slither through the crack, which extends down the entire wall and into some of the floor around it. The one window in the room is dipping precariously into the crack in the wall, glass already cracked and serving as another means for Edelwood to get into the room. It's only a matter of time before it finally caves and sends the whole wall crumbling into pieces of wood and sapling oil.

"Careful where you step." Sara says, curling her fingers around Greg's arm and leading him to a corner of the room. A bookcase stands empty and covered in dust in one corner, and Greg sees scratches on the floor where Sara must've pushed the bookcase away to reveal the wall beneath. The same old wall and same old bookcase he was squeezed between. He looks at the wallpaper that comes in soggy peels from the wall—finally illuminated, and sees that it used to be perfectly white and printed with tiny bluebirds. The memory of Beatrice looking down at him from on top of his teapot-hat makes him forget about the creeping cold that seems to emanate from the Edelwood and he shakes out of Sara's grip.

He pinches a bit of the torn wallpaper between his fingers and lifts it up to examine the printed birds better. He grins giddily, pointing them out to Sara. "These look a lot like Bea—" His words cut off when he sees something beneath the ripped up paper. The cold returns full-force and he steps away, back colliding with Sara's torso. He feels her hand not holding onto her walking stick grasp his shoulder. "Woah, where are you going? This is what I wanted to show you."

Wood creaks as Sara walks forward and pushes the torn bits of wallpaper away from the wall completely, revealing the wooden slats beneath. They're covered in dried up smears of oil and some handprints. Sara smooths her hand over them, her palm coming back up clean. "Freaky, right? They're dry, so someone must've sneaked in here _days_ ago to scratch these onto the wall. But why though…"

Greg just about manages to nod along to her words, feet shuffling steadily closer and closer to the door every passing second. The cold is seeping into his body faster than he's ever felt before, like he's in the middle of a wintery blizzard without a jacket. White flashes behind his eyes and he clamps his mouth shut to keep them from chattering as he keeps shuffling away. Sara is just a bunch of muddled colors in his vision and he stops shuffling out of the room when the wall presses into his back, the hard pressure of it some sort of anchor as he tries to keep his eyes from drooping closed. They're almost fully shut when something tickles past his ankle and he screams, back sliding down the wall and his bottom thumping onto the floor. Greg can faintly hear Sara curse from beside him.

He's slumped against the wall and on the floor now, limbs too weak to swat away the Edelwood branches that wrap around his ankles and up his legs. They slither up slowly and bring even more cold with them, their oily tendrils climbing up his body in clumps that soon merge into larger, thicker branches. Greg hears himself screaming in some part of his head, sees Sara's face hovering above, and finally, feels the cold taking over.

Her foot's killing her, the uneven floor is creaking precariously under the weight of her steps, but Sara doesn't stop and lands hard on her hands and knees, the window on the far wall rattling on its hinges. She grabs onto Greg's shoulders, breath hitching when even his frantic screams slowly quiet down into soft whispers. A crash resounds from the floor below—probably Anna, Sara thinks, as her hands move to fist the material of Greg's shirt. She gives him a quick shake, enough to lift his back off from the wall he's slumped against, but does nothing more to snap him out of his trance. His hands still move to swat weakly at his front though, fingers pulling away at some invisible object. Sara curses.

"Greg? Hey—can you hear me?"

Only the slight flutter of his eyelids serves as an answer. Sara bites her lip, slipping her walking stick into her belt loop. She pulls Greg into her arms, unconsciously shivering when his cold cheek presses into the side of her face. He's still whispering something she can't understand, but the fact that he's ice cold and just collapsed because of something she can't very well explain makes the gibberish he's currently spewing in her ear unimportant. "Geez." Sara knows she's mostly talking to herself now, but she still does, hoping that Greg can still partially hear her words. "Everything'll be okay, kid. Let's just get you outta here."

Sara imagines she's only carrying a _really_ soft and _heavy_ suitcase when she lifts Greg up from the floor and out the door. The kid's tiny and weights little by normal people's standards, but Sara's tiny and weights little too, so when her arms finally give up in the hallway and she just manages to set Greg down on the floor again before she drops him, it's hardly her fault. It doesn't stop the flood of heavy guilt pool in her empty stomach, though.

"Sara! _Greg_! Are you two alright?" Anna's voice rattles Sara out of her slumped position, the younger girl's words punctuated with her heavy footfalls on the stairs.

"It's Greg! He's…" Sara hears the footsteps coming closer but can't find a word to describe what's happening to the kid. She shakes him again, but it doesn't seem to matter now, his eyes are still closed tight and he's still swatting away at something and whispering. The footsteps finally stop and Sara turns.

Anna's standing on the topmost stair, hands black with dirt from the yams she must've been cleaning minutes ago. There's a moment when Anna only stands there, stoic except for the erratic movement of her eyes snapping from Sara's stare to Greg's squirming form, something Sara couldn't discern passing over her features. When the moment ends only a question tumbles out from between the girl's pale lips, voice travelling down the hallway barely loud enough for Sara to hear. "What did you show him?"

It's stupid of her, but Sara can't help but freeze a little at the other girl's words—her voice sounding too foreign and _stiff_ , very unlike the endearing (if not a bit awkward) girl from just last night. She schools her face out of its twisted grimace and manages to let go of Greg's shirt front, the kid sagging into the wall. Her arm reaches behind her to point at the door of the old bedroom. "In there. There was something on the wall…"

Before Sara can really comprehend anything, Anna's sprinting down the hall, feet smacking on the floor hard enough to make Sara half-afraid that the floor might just split into two below them. Anna pulls up screeching in front of the bedroom door, skirts billowing behind her. In a blur, her hands are on the door that Sara just now remembers slamming closed with her foot in the process of getting Greg out. Now it's jammed tight between the branches sprouting from the floor, oil smearing onto the bottom of the door when Anna results to shouldering it open. Sara recalls doing the very same thing to get the front door open, and she's sorta sure that if she gives it whack she would get it open far quicker than Anna, but she sees something in the frantic movements of the other girl that keeps her still. This is entirely new for her; letting someone else handle everything while she only watched helpless and shivering (she is wearing a torn shirt in the middle of autumn, after all) at the side lines. A little part of her wants to join in, actually, to break the stupid door open she herself closed and help get Greg out of whatever thing he's gotten into.

But she can't. Can't do anything in this crazy place she can't seem to wrap her head around. Can't even look after a fucking kid without him climbing out a window or collapsing in a fit of… whatever it is that's happening to him.

The sound of wood scrapping painfully against wood grates on Sara's ears enough to snap her out of her thoughts. "Edelwood…" It's Anna's voice, coming into Sara's head like a dry breeze through an open window. The girl managed to get the door open, but now she's backed away on the opposite wall, pressing her body as flat against the other side as possible. _She's even paler now_ , Sara notices, tries to stand, but Anna looks at her dead in the eye and shakes her head, brown hair framing her face and fluffing up all about her. Sara stays where she is.

"Don't move away. Greg needs you beside him." Anna says after a second, swallowing a visible lump in her throat before continuing. "I-Is this what you showed Greg?"

"No. It was a bunch of creepy smears on the wall."

Anna retracts herself from the wall and steps tentatively into the room. She doesn't look around though, only focuses on keeping herself in the room. "Where, Sara?"

"The wall nearest the booksh—" Greg lets out a high pitched keen then, spine straightening into a stiff line like he's been struck by lightning. His eyebrows knit together in pain and his mouth pulls into a tight line. Sara feels her heart drop down to her stomach at the sound, hands immediately pulling the kid's quickly stiffening body into her arms. It takes her a second to remember that she's supposed to give Anna directions and continues. "It's th-the wall by the b-bookshelf. I already tore out a chunk of wallpaper off the wall." Somehow she manages to hear Anna's heavy footsteps enter the room deeper, but can't bring herself to actually look up. Her eyes stay trained on Greg's face, watching the color in his cheeks slowly drain out, bringing out the few smatterings of little sun-freckles he has. He would look just like a sleeping Cupid printed onto a cheap Valentine, if it weren't for the fact that his face is set in the deepest frown Sara's seen on him and his skin is as cold as a bag of frozen peas. And of course, the fact that he's barely breathing—barely even able to swat away at invisible things anymore.

She tightens her grip on Greg and finds her voice. " _Anna_! He-Greg's getting colder—I need your help."

" _Oh no_." It's Anna's voice, but Sara gets a feeling that the younger girl's probably talking about something else. She's proven right only a minute later. "No. Oh, not her. _Please don't let it be her_."

The fear and fragility in Anna's words freezes Sara's blood in her veins. She tries to call out again, but she knows from the sudden silence that comes from the room that Anna wouldn't be able to help no matter how many times she calls, too stricken with whatever she might have seen in that room. Fear presses into Sara's lungs, her hazy brain realizing that she's alone with no idea of how to fix things. Almost all at once her strength (or maybe it's hope?) leaves her and she barely gets her body to lean up against the wall, Greg's dead weight stifling her breathing. She doesn't mind that much.

Maybe a minute or an hour passes and Greg eventually stops moving at all, the constant thump-thump-thump of his heart and the soft little breaths that escape his mouth the only signs that he's still alive. Sara's actually a bit glad that he's quieted down; it's easier to imagine that the whole screaming and collapsing didn't happen and all the kid did was take a nap in the middle of the hallway. She adjusts him a bit to make room for his head to lay better against her upper chest and feels something dig into the palm of her hand. Sticky moisture coats her fingers when she touches it and she frowns, bringing up her hand to inspect it. It's smeared with the same oil that covers the wall of the bedroom.

Sara's breath hitches in the back of her throat. A cold rope or fear snakes up her spine and she quickly wipes it away, hooking her hands under Greg's armpits and moving him up and away from her to see his body better and hopefully find the source of the oil. Resistance meets her mid-way through and Sara blinks when she sees the tiny sapling wrapping around Greg's ankle through a gap in the floor. It sends another rope of fear wrapping around her spine, but she brushes the feeling away and pulls at the soft plant, her fingers pulling it off the kid's leg. And like touching a live wire, she immediately regrets it.

As if cursed, Greg erupts into another scream, little body jumping out of Sara's grip like she's suddenly made of fire. He lands on the floor with an inaudible thump, writhing and screaming. Sara bites back a scream of her own, grabbing the kid by the shoulders and pulling him closer. Unlike the last time he fell into a pile of pained spasms though, he actually attempts fighting back. And fights back he does, feet socking her in the gut and hands nailing punches on her face enough times to make her head spin. She does get him eventually, her arms wrapping around him in a tight bear hug. And like the last time, his eyes don't try to move a fraction of an inch open—but his legs still do move, sharp kicks only getting harder.

Sara bites her tongue at the pain, taking a rough breath to steady herself and moving her hands to rest on the kid's shoulders again. She bunches up the material of his shirt and shakes him again. "Dammit. Wake up, wake up, wake up!" The kicking only grows rougher, Greg's screams becoming more and more erratic and breathless. Despair slams into Sara like a jackhammer and she stops shaking him, a sob ripping itself out of her mouth. Tears burn in the backs of her eyes and they blur her vision, Greg scuffling in her grip becoming a muddle of colors she couldn't understand. A small part of her (the part that still believes in Christmas elves and fairies) hopes that maybe when she blinks the tears away she would open her eyes to her room, the rough but at the same time soft comforter of dulled red and grey pressing into her face like usual. _Yeah, the chances of that happening are about the same as Jason developing actual people skills. Completely impossible._

Against all odds, the thought of her dorky friend gives her the will to blink away her tears and face the inevitable. The possibility of being in her bed again is dashed the second she does, but she can't really dwell on that fact for very long because she's suddenly surrounded in still silence like just a few minutes ago. It's not completely quiet though. Sara stares down at Greg, not really able to cry in his current state, just sniffling weakly and blinking away tears.

 _Wait—blinking?_

Like lightning, Sara's eyes fill with light when she sees the littlest sliver of muddy moss green pupils and she almost topples over pulling Greg closer, the air between them soon getting hot and stuffy. " _Fuckfuckfuck—_ God, I'm so _sorry,"_ The rest of her words get caught in the fabric of the kid's shirt and she's kinda glad that he isn't able to hear any more of the swearing she's currently doing.

" _W-Wirt?"_

The voice is soft enough for Sara to only imagine hearing, but she just knows by the twinge in her gut that she hears it. She pulls away enough to see Greg's face and has to fight to keep her relieved smile on her face. He seems to look even worse than before, with his eyes surrounded by dark circles and sweat slicking his pale skin. "N-no, Greg. It's—" The words get stuck in her throat when the weakest smile she's seen pulls at Greg's lips, eyes sill lidded and hazy She blows out a shaky breath and brings a hand up to wipe away a stray tear. "Yeah. Y-yeah, it's me. It's Wirt."

"Oh. I knew you'd save me, brother o' mine."

Cotton clogs up Sara's throat and all she can do is smile back. And then Greg starts coughing and the smile is wiped away from her face again. "Greg? Hey—"

"I'm—" Another bout of coughs erupts from his mouth. "Ok. I just need to… sleep a little more."

"But you _can't_." Sara's grip on Greg tightens when his eyes grow even hazier and start drooping. She moves to give him another shake, but a sharp, wooden creak makes her stop. Another one of those saplings grow around his ankle and up his leg, keeping him in place as even more start to form. _"Shit."_

Tearing through them doesn't make a difference this time, and Sara realizes that the saplings grow _even faster_ the more she pulls them off Greg's leg. Soon saplings are shooting out of the floor fast enough for Sara to miss getting them all with one swoop of her hand, the pliable things slipping through her fingers with all the oil she's squished out of them earlier. And then she can't move very much at all, the saplings growing over her lap and tangling in Greg's limbs. "What the hell? God, I gotta get us out of here." Sara wrenches an oily hand from the quickly thickening mass of saplings and pulls Greg out of their twisting grasp a part of the way, the kid's head lolling heavily on her shoulder. She moves to brush away some of the sweaty hair that's plastering his face, but then she realizes that her one arm is already weighed down by the saplings—or _branch_ , that is, judging by how strong and thick it's grown in the past few seconds. Her eyes grow wide with alarm, but they grow even wider when she sees that Greg's just barely able to keep his eyes open. "Greg! Hey, don't walk out on me here." The one arm she's got free wraps around his midsection tighter and she gives him a gentle shake.

"B-But…"

"C'mon," Sara says, feeling the saplings around them growing more and more pliable the longer Greg resists falling back to sleep. "Um, tell me about your day, yeah?"

"My day?"

"Mhm. Tell ol' Wirt about your day at the—the… park."

The kid's eyes dim at that, and Sara's ready to give him another shake, when his heavy-lidded eyes brighten and he grins and toothy and wide grin. "Oh, the park was great! Mom bought me an ice cream and I even got to climb the biggest set of monkey bars at the playground. It wasn't as fun as climbing up the graveyard wall, though." She can almost move her arm out from beneath the saplings holding it down now, and she has to supress a wince when a twig digs into her bare arm. "Really? W-wow, that sounded really fun." Sara wracks her brain for anything else to say, twisting her arm hard to get out of the uncomfortable press of wood. "D-D'you bring Jason Funderburker?"

"Yeah…" Greg says, rubbing a hand over one eye. "Um, Wirt?"

 _Just a bit more…_ Sara thinks, looking up. "Yeah?"

"I think… I'll get some shut eye for a bit. Can I sleep here?"

"N-No, you can't." Whatever Sara's saying doesn't seem to matter to the kid anymore, and he huffs out a great big yawn and belts out a cough or two before easing his head onto her shoulder. Almost immediately, the saplings start growing again. "H-Hey! Greg! Fuck, don't go to sleep—!"

And then she gets her other arm out with a sickening cry, the dark skin covered in a mix of dripping oil and blood. Sara wraps both arms around Greg and tries to stand again, but even with softer saplings covering them, it's impossible. Sara grits her teeth and pulls away to look at Greg's face, almost deep asleep, with just the barest trace of consciousness behind his twitching eyelids. "Shit! Wake up! Wake up!" Sara shakes the life out of him again, but she knows it's fucking useless. Her teeth grind loudly in her head and a crazy idea pops into her head.

She tries to call out to him one last time. "Greg?" No answer. Ok. She would only do this as a last resort, anyway.

Sara holds Greg up in one arm and raises the other up high, palm flat in an open slap. "Ok. I'm really gonna do this." She brings her hand down and clenches her eyes tightly closed the moment she feels her palm connect with soft face-meat. The resounding smack makes her wince. "Damn. I hope that worked."

When she opens her eyes, she's met with a wide-eyed stare and a pudgy face with a sharp red handprint on one cheek. The face tilts to one side a bit and opens its mouth to speak. "Sara? I-Is that you?"

The biggest sigh she's probably produced escapes from between the gaps of her teeth. She finds it's an effort to speak. "Yup, the one and only." The burn of tears behind her eyes ebbs away and she feels them roll down her cheeks in two thin rivulets, cutting warm tracks through the cool sheen of sweat that's already formed there. Greg sees the tears and his little body moves in her suddenly-limp arms, reaching up to wrap his arms around her neck in a warm cocoon. The kid presses his face into the crook of her shoulder and Sara feels him shiver. His voice is soft and tangles in her matted hair when he speaks. "I'm sorry for making you worry. Promise I won't do it again."

"Oh, don't be like that." Sara finds it in her to tighten her grip on the kid and she pulls them both up, legs easily ripping through the rapidly softening saplings. Even now, they were slithering back into the floorboards or simply dropping floppily onto the floor in dark pools of oil. "It's my fault for getting you into that stupid room. Everything's fine now." Sara says the last sentence almost for herself. She steadies herself against the wall and proceeds down the hall, feet dragging.

The ringing in Wirt's ears doesn't stop; even when he blinks his eyes open and feels sticky warmth plastering the right side of his face, a head-splitting headache setting in. An attempt to wipe the wetness covering his cheek fails and he finally notices the deflated air bag and cracked windshield in front of him. Nothing else registers in his muddled mind except suffocating panic.

Wirt wrestles his arm out from between the press of the bent car door and his own side, sleeve tearing as he pulls it out. Fingers feel for the car handle and upon finding that it's too mangled to use (along with the rest of the car), he hooks an arm through the shattered glass of the car door and stutters them across the mangled surface, grabbing onto the car handle and pulling. He tumbles out the passengers' side and onto rough road. Grey asphalt digs into his palms as he gets up, only making it half-way before his legs give up on him and he crumples back onto the ground. A groan bubbles deep in the back of his throat and he finally looks over his lower-half. He doesn't expect to see a gaping wound on his thigh, still fresh and gushing dark blood. It seems a lot more than what he thinks is possible, and he doesn't think for a split second, wrapping a hand around the wound and squeezing.

"Jesus fucking Chri—" Wirt's words get cut off when he bites down on his own tongue, a terribly wimpy-sounding whimper slipping past his lips instead. Warmth slicks up his palm and he takes a deep breath, forehead pressing against a bony knee. His breathing is laboured and the breaths come from between the spaces of his teeth, cold against his sore tongue. Wirt only looks back up when he notices the eerie silence around him. _A car crash is supposed to be lough, right?_ He cranes his neck upwards, head swivelling from side-to-side. There's a ten-wheeler truck that just slammed into a wooden electrical pole and his own car in a rumpled mess just behind it, but other than that, no one else is one the road with them. Only curving mountain road fills his roving eyes.

Maybe the sight of the pretty blue flowers growing along the mountain side is supposed to calm him, but all of it only fills him with even more panic. One minute he's driving down a freeway and the next he wakes up in a freaking car accident in the middle of nowhere. What's he even doing here? The crash leaves him stunned and in shock, heart hammering in his chest and black fuzz filling his brain. He can't remember _anything_.

Wirt smothers a hand all over his pale face, his fingers mussing his blood-wet hair and irritating whatever wound's on his forehead. Pain bolts through his head at the touch and he starts a bit, something heavy dropping out of his pants pocket. It's his cellphone.

" _God_ , of course." He fumbles for the right button and thanks whoever deity is up there 'cause the cracked thing actually still works. "Ok. Call 911. Call 911." His bloody fingers smear the letters as he types his password in, red daubing across the dim screen. By the time he gets the password right most of the dim screen is coated in flaking blood. "Great." He wipes a sleeve over the screen, watching the blood smear even more. "Just fucking gre—" The blood's still there, but only a thin, dark red film of it is left and he can finally see the pudgy face staring back at him through the shattered screen.

The picture's a new one, Wirt knows, since Greg likes to tinker with his phone when he's got nothing else to do and second to playing the few games he's installed just for his brother's pleasure, Greg liked to change his screensaver a lot. Like _a lot_ a lot. And now the picture showing on Wirt's screen is a slightly blurry one of him and the eight year-old, cheeks smushed together and skin highlighted by the afternoon sun. It was taken yesterday, Wirt assumes, and after a second look at the smiling faces his mind finally catches up _._ His face pales as he finally reaches a conclusion. _No. No. No. No._

The words echo in his head like a mantra as he drops the phone from his all of a sudden slack grip and limps—no he practically _runs—_ to the backseat's car door and wrenches it open.

He's expecting it, but a cry of despair still manages to tear itself out from his throat. "Oh, Greg…" Wirt's certain he's done nothing softer or gentler than pull his younger brother's limp body out from the car seat and into his arms. Wirt's certain he hasn't cried as pitifully as the last time he's seen Greg covered in Edelwood years ago.

"I'll get you home. Yeah. Like I always do."


	5. Story Time (finally)

**Chapter 5:**

 _Sara's face hovers above him, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "Here. Lie down by the fire."_

" _O-Ok. Uh, S-Sara—"_

" _Oh, even your voice's gone all raspy. No need to say anything, Greg." She pulls up Anna's roughly woven cloak up from somewhere and wraps it around him. "I'll just get Anna from upstairs and…she can tell us that story. You'd like that, right?"_

 _He nods._

" _Good."_

Greg opens his eyes, fighting to keep them open. He's never felt this _tired_ before. Even his hair seems bushed, the strands lying heavily on his sweat-slick forehead. And the tight cloak he's currently encased in is just too heavy and rigid to get out of in his state. He's tried calling out; but all that comes from his mouth are grating whispers of either Sara or Anna's names. So now all he's doing is staring up at the rotting ceiling and hope that a spider might fall between his eyes so he'd have someone to talk to.

A noticeably bigger specimen of daddy-longlegs hanging from a cracked beam is a strong contender, its spindly legs shaking uncontrollably in the strong gusts of wind. Greg counts the seconds before the thin invisible spider-fingers let go of the rotten wood, too engrossed with his staring to hear any of the conversing up above. One strong blow of wind gets the daddy-longlegs to finally let go of the ceiling-floor and it drops square onto Greg's forehead. He feels it scuttle around for a moment, and he focuses on not sneezing or giggling when the tiny brush of its legs turns out to be tickly. When it stops moving and decides to stay, Greg finally opens his eyes, seeing the blurriest outline of a spider leg against the usual rotten ceiling. He can't see the insect very well, but at least he feels it scuffling across his forehead. A grin stretches his tired face.

"Hello," his voice is still sore and raspy, so the spider doesn't startle in the slightest. "I'm gonna name you—" He cuts himself off, wrinkling his nose in thought. The image of Jason Funderburker lingers in the back of his mind and he recalls one of the old, discarded names he'd thought up for the frog. "Wirt Jr.! I'll name you Wirt Jr."

The spider doesn't talk at all like the real Wirt, or like Jason Funderburker (doesn't make much of any sound at all, actually) but Greg's glad to have someone to talk to. He's already opening his mouth to say something actually, when he finally hears the two sets of voices talking above. Anna's voice is the first to waft down from the second floor, the speech warbled from the distance. Sara's voice follows soon after. Greg wrinkles his nose some more and changes his voice into a whisper. "Wadda'ya think they're talking about up there?"

Greg waits a beat before answering his own question. "Yeah, I think s—" Footsteps move from the second floor and he shuts his mouth with a sharp clack of his teeth. The spider startles with the new sound; thin legs scuttling across Greg's nose and down his chin, thread-like limbs disappearing from his sight in a second. He sighs between his teeth. "Bye, then."

Familiar loud smacks of Anna's work boots against the tired planks of the stairway makes him go silent again. Another pair of footsteps follows hers, and he snuggles deeper into the worn cloak, shutting his eyes and feigning sleep. He's pretty sure he's perfected faking sleep at this point, what with the almost uncountable amount of times he's gotten anyone older than him to carry him back to his cozy cotton sheets back come. And even though he proves to be right when Sara and Anna reach the cold threshold seconds later and they don't immediately figure out his awesome act, he can't bring himself to know why he's faking sleep in the first place. Surely any of the two girls would unwrap him from the tight constraints of the cloak if he'd just asked them to. Yeah. Of course they would. Greg wriggles a bit underneath the makeshift blanket and musters up enough volume to call out.

Before he can say anything though, Anna's voice flutters anxiously into fruition. "Are you sure about this, Sara? I don't want to lie…" Her words are barely a whisper and mix into the gusts of wind from outside, but with all the listening Greg's been dong lately, he can hear her perfectly as if she'd been sitting right next to him. He fights to keep back a smile. _Heightened senses—like a superhero._

"I don't want to either. But we can't do anything about it, all right?" Sara says, sighing. "I'm _kinda_ sure everything'll work out. Let's just forget about it for now. Come on, I need your help making something edible out of these yams."

Clanking and a few soft thuds accompany Anna's soft hum of agreement. Greg twiddles his fingers and twists at the hem of his polo shirt as the two move around noisily around him, a few faint curses peppering the melee of sound and movement. Greg desperately wants to join in, but he can't make himself open his eyes again. What Anna's said still gnaws at his insides. Not painfully, but in a sort of haunting way like when you know you're alone in a room or not.

He still remembers what happened just hours ago, remembers it clear enough for it to have just happened a minute from now. But strangely, it doesn't freak him out like it did the first time he woke up on the floor swaddled in rough wool. _At least everything's fine now, right?_ Is what he'd thought a minute into waking up that first time, and it's the same thing he thought when he woke up in a hospital room beside Wirt three years ago. He'd been right then, but he isn't so sure now. Something else entirely is still happening, and it's far from over. Greg's sure it wouldn't be the last time he'd wake up smeared with a face full of sticky sweat and tears.

He keeps his eyes glued shut until someone finally lays a hand on his forehead and he blinks them open, vision bleary like he'd actually been asleep. Anna's face stands out sharply in the orangey light, each strand of light brown hair stark against the dark, drooping ceiling above. Greg heaves a dramatic yawn.

"Are you feeling well?" She asks, already peeling away the fabric around his body. Her deft fingers are a bit pale as she works. Greg manages to free an arm and he rubs the fake sleep out of his eyes. His voice still barely reaches a light croak, but Anna's so close she'd hear anything he would say even if he'd whisper it to himself. "'M okay; just…" A shrug. "Hungry."

"I can take care of that!"

Sara's voice is so strong Greg feels Anna jump a bit into the air, the action lasting for half a second before she's all worried smiles and nimble fingers again. Sara skewers a boiled yam from the big copper pot the two girls had dragged in during Greg's pretend sleep and watches as the girl mashes up the bright orange root with a handful of berries until it becomes an orange mush striped with blue and purple streaks. The makeshift plate made out of a salvaged cutting board is handed to him a little later. Sara gives him an encouraging smile and a thumbs up. "Eat up, kid."

"Thank-you," he sing-songs, taking the plate from her hands and balancing it on his lap. Sara grabs her own serving of mush and looks apologetically down at the unappetizing meal. "We'll have to eat with our hands. Sorry about that." Greg already knows this, since he's heard Sara complaining about it for the past minute to no one in particular and digs a hand into his pocket. The old popsicle stick is studded with bite-marks that dig comfortably into Greg's palm as he pokes and prods at the boiled yam, contentedly shovelling mouthfuls of it into his mouth moments later. It's not the best thing he's eaten, but it's a thousand times better than the time all he and Wirt could find in the forest was a small patch of berries (that turned out to be poisonous) and the few stalks of wild asparagus that Beatrice had managed to bring after her own meal of wriggling worms.

The memory rings a bell in Greg's head and he stops eating. The two girl's notice, but he meets Anna's gaze before they can say anything. "I wanna see Beatrice. D'you know her?"

And it's not because Anna freezes in the middle of eating and pales, but because Sara does so too that startles Greg and makes him blink up at them curiously. That's all he does though, and after a moment of silence, Greg supposes that Anna doesn't know of anyone with the name Beatrice and resumes eating. Inevitably the time comes when he's all out of food and even then neither of the girls is willing to speak up. Greg frowns, disappointed, but with his belly full, he's energized enough to pull the rest of Anna's cloak off. No one stops him when he gets up on his wobbly legs and runs out the door.

Outside, the wind howls even louder than Greg's ever heard it before, the crimson tops of trees bending and occasionally snapping off a stiff branch. The worn house he came from looks to be situated smack dab in the middle of nowhere, with forest surrounding every side and an ominous waterfall bubbling away in the distance. The wooden mill Greg remembers to have wrecked the first time he'd visited is a bit shaggy from weeks of disuse, but the dark wood is still shiny and newly cut. Moss grows all over its metal cogs and fittings now, jamming the mechanism and trailing dark green fingers into the slow-moving stream that forks from the waterfall. Greg weights at the idea of wading in the neck-deep water and looking for frogs, but lets the idea flop when he notices the scourges of mosquitoes trying and failing to lay eggs in the water. Instead, he clumsily runs to an abandoned wood barrel and scrambles up its age-smoothened surface, sneakers squeak-squeaking until he's standing on the upturned barrel.

Wind whips at his face and hair, tugging at the ends and playing with the hem of his shirt. Forest sounds flutter from across the stream, his senses still a bit sharp and it's easy to pick up the various sounds and sights: broken branches slamming into the leaf-covered ground, water bubbling in the stream, shaking leaves, and the twittering birds; everything from a thrush, woodpecker, and a blue jay.

Greg mistakes the jay for a bluebird at first, almost calling out Beatrice's name before bringing both hands up to muffle his words. The action muffs up his balance and he topples onto his back.

It's not a terribly painful fall, but it's enough to stun him into complete silence. A silence so quiet he's able to hear the smoky clouds move above. It's the first time he notices the golden twinge in the sky, warm orange and periwinkle mixing to make watery aubergine shadows across everything. The lonesome blue jay glides smoothly along the border where both sky hues mix and Greg whispers something softened by his rasp until it's barely audible. It's a secret promise to find Beatrice again, and it's supposed to just be between the mixed-up sky and him, until someone's footsteps break the silence and another watery shadow covers Greg's upper half.

"What're you doing on your back?" Wirt asks, leaning over and adjusting his pointy cap to keep it from falling. Mousy hair peeks from the edges of the cap and Greg can't help but let out a snort of laughter as he thinks up an answer. "Fell off the barrel."

" _Oh no_ , your head's split in half." A bluebird flutters onto his older brother's shoulder. Beatrice's ribbing voice is familiar and just like he remembers. "We'll have to leave you, Greg. Good luck with the werewolf that likes to eat little kids."

Wirt rolls his eyes. "H-Hey, don't scare him."

"I'm not scared! I can beat any ol' werewolf that comes; easy!" Greg scrambles back up and mimes punching through a dozen monsters—werewolf or not.

Beatrice giggles the only way a bird could through its beak and nips smugly at Wirt's earlobe. "See, Greg's not scared. No need to get your knickers in a twist."

The older of the two boys flushes beet red and Greg laughs, the sound raspy but welcome just the same. He laughs so long that breathing becomes not so very important anymore, and his eyes squeeze shut, soiled hands eventually reaching up to keep his laughter down. Eons seem to pass as he giggles and guffaws, and when he does open his eyes again, the imaginary Wirt and Beatrice are gone; without even a single shoe impression in the soft gold-green grass.

A sigh follows after his laughter and he picks at the grass stains on his shorts. "I guess that means goodbye, I guess." He's the only one that can hear it, but in the half-moment before the door to the mysterious-house-that-doesn't-belong-to-the-Woodsman opens and Sara waves him to come inside, he hopes that somewhere someone _is_ listening. And someone is, Greg's little voice carrying through the thick criss-cross of branches until it reaches a dip in the forest's land much deeper in than anyone's surely gotten to, wind whipping up the dark branches and carting the kid's words around the dim clearing so the creature inside can't help but hear his voice.

After a quick wash in the same copper pot (now filled with chilly stream water) Greg takes his place beside the hearth, hands and face now clean. Outside the purple tree shadows are so long that Greg can barely see their wispy tips. He gives the dirty petticoat Anna's letting him use as a sort of cushion a contented fluff and looks up at his stagnant company. Both girls, after fussing and cooing at how he needs a bath, are sitting across from him, the semi-grimy washcloth they'd used to scrub away all the oil and dirt still clutched in Anna's grip. Speaking of Anna, Greg notices how her back is even straighter than usual, it's ramrod straightness reminding Greg of a pale beanpole. Even Sara looked like her naturally dark complexion would melt off just so her blanching face could be seen in all its glory. Greg likes the spooky quiet at first, but with no more reasons for him to pretend sleep or stay still, he quickly gets bored. His face is balanced perfectly on his opened palms when he speaks. "Mrs. Daniel told me once that the quieter the person is, the more they have to tell you. D'you have a lot to tell me?"

Sara answers first. "Uh, yeah. Something like that."

"Mm," Anna mops up the sweat on her forehead using the washcloth and it leaves a greasy black mark across her skin, making the paleness of it even more obvious. She seems to gather her strength for a minute and then finally musters up a sentence. "It certainly is… _something."_

" _Something_ , like the story?"

Both girls laugh at that. They ignore the question as the fire's flames crackle and pop contentedly, its ruddy glow slowly taking over the dimmer the sun gets, brown and angular silhouettes taking the place of the watery purple ones. Eventually Sara excuses herself to do something Greg hasn't bothered to pay attention to and only Anna's left to talk to. She's not very good conversation, though.

Of course Greg notices the way she opens and closes her mouth like a blubbering goldfish, notices the sweat washing away the black smudges across her forehead, even the way her chest heaves with every inhale. But he's seen all these things on Wirt before, and the best way to get rid of them was always to give the older boy some time to muster up the courage to speak. So Greg twiddles with the laces of his sneakers, slipping them out the holes and twirling their ends tight around his fingers. He's half-way done with wrapping his pinkie and forefinger together with shoelace when Anna coughs awkwardly into her fist. "You asked about Beatrice, right?"

The shoelace goes slack between his fingers. "Yeah!" He launches onto his feet, warm coziness settling around his shoulders. "I really _really_ want to see her again, not to mention all the other people we met here, like the Tavern keeper and Ms. Langtree. I'd like to see Lorna too, but that Aunite Whispers is _creeee_ -py! I wanna see the Woodsman, too but he's lost so—"

"Alright!" Anna loses the slight tremble in her voice and she laughs, quick and bright and reminding Greg of summer. A smile pulls at her thin lips and she continues. "I can't promise we'll be able to see all those other people, but you'll be able to see Beatrice." Her smile wavers before widening.

Greg's sure that by the time Anna gets him to sit down again, half the ground floor is ready to come down with all the stomping and jumping he's done in the past minute. Anna shushes him with a laugh and a ruffle of his hair. Greg smoothes the mess of locks down though, since Wirt likes to keep his neat—or, well, as neat as it can get with it naturally sticking up everywhere. He gasps out a laugh and an inhale at the same time before speaking. "When will we be able to see her?"

Anna's still smiling when she answers, but Greg can detect how it's a bit more strained than it was before. "That's the problem, child."

It's weird hearing someone call him 'child' (the last one being the Beast) but it's a good kind of weird, 'cause the only time he's called that has been in the Unknown. And the Unknown really is full of _weird_ , isn't it?

"What's the problem?"

"Beatrice is, how should I say, not here."

 _Not here_. The term jumps around Greg's head before he can fully digest it. "Did she move?"

The smile disappears altogether. "At first. Her family wanted to move across the country. She said her father bought a slip of land far away to farm on."

"Wait!" Anna freezes. "Permission to ask a question, your honor?"

Anna can't even hope to understand most of what comes out Greg's mouth, but she still nods numbly. He plows into his question without pause, the words tumbling steady and exact from his mouth. "Whose house _is_ this?"

And after that Anna can't help but tell him everything. Greg listens to the whole explanation as to how the two met; Beatrice's mum plodding heavily through the fresh snow in her stout human form long ago, clutching at Beatrice as the girl bled out into her mother's spencer jacket. Beatrice had apparently been cursed by not only being turned into a bluebird, but also with the two large lacerations down her shoulder blades. Her family had turned back into their human selves with no problem, but when Beatrice finally found them in their tree hollow and handed them the magic scissors, she was half-frozen and bleeding from her wounds.

"Of course we had to help." Anna continues, "all the others in her family managed to get out fine, and they were all around the forest, looking for their abandoned home. Only Beatrice and her mother separated from their protection to look for help."

Crickets begin to chirp outside. Anna continues without preamble, Greg knowing that if she stops now, it would take ages for her to speak again. "Father knows every place in this forest, so gathering his axe, he left to find the rest of Beatrice's family and lead them to their homestead. I was left to take care of Beatrice." The girl shivers before resuming. "It was a miracle the wounds didn't need any stitching. Father eventually returned and we carried them both back to their home. Which is here. Beatrice used to live here."

"That's why everything's all-bluebird themed the last time I was here!" Greg fights to jump around excitedly again. "Go on."

After all the business with Beatrice and her rocky trip back into being human, the story of Anna and her becoming friends is a fast and sweet one. Greg wonders why Anna looks sad and nervous all the same while she talks about the many secret times Beatrice had slipped out into the woods just so they could romp through the trees together, skating on their hard-soled shoes over a frozen pond and digging up beets to boil up and eat. And then Anna delves a little further and the story steadily grows colder. "She never told me explicitly, but she had terrible visions sometimes, all of them when I seemed to mention either you or your brother. I never told her that I would notice when her visions would set in." Speech becomes harder for her and the words exit slowly and thickly between her teeth. "I'd thought it was good for her to move, back then, so she could clear her head and move on. But I…I guess I was wrong." The cloth she's holding tears in one corner, her grip that tight.

"She and her family are all lost now, I found their carts wrecked and abandoned when I was looking for Father."

The silence is palpable and thick, then. So thick even Greg's unable to speak.

They wake and pack up all their belongings by the dimming fire. All of them (actually just both girls and Greg cutting in with a made-up rhyme or a preoccupied nod) had decided last night that they would all look for Anna's Father and Beatrice before actually looking for a way home. Sara knows there's way more stuff going into it than just that, but that's what Greg believes they were doing so she'd mould and shape her mind into thinking the same.

Anna's not taking the whole 'lying to the kid for his own good' thing well though, and Sara sees the obvious strain in Anna's barely lit figure as she hoists her rucksack across her back, shoulders curling in closer to her chest. The last day wasn't very mentally healthy for any of them and none were too happy to relive those hours again, but the mystery girl seemed to have gotten the even shorter end of the stick. Sara doesn't know a lot about the other girl (knows next to nothing, if anyone's counting at this point)but _not_ noticing the huge bags under Anna's eyes would've meant she was either blind or had even bigger issues. And after seeing her ex's kid brother hallucinating and getting covered by weird-ass branches Sara is sure she has a lot of problems.

"You doing all right?"

Anna ignores her question, struggling with the straps of her thinning bundle of firewood. They're nearly ready to head out soon, with Greg already getting a head start as he prances and runs along the strip of grassland that surrounds the old homestead. The kid's just waiting for them to exit the house now—which he now knew belonged to this mystery Beatrice girl Sara found out about yesterday. _At least he's doing all right,_ Sara thinks, seeing him roll around in the dewy grass. She couldn't bear to think of what she'd do if he didn't make it out otherwise. Sara sighs when even then the other girl doesn't speak, tying up her shoelace tight over her injured foot—much better now—and getting up to stand beside her.

There's a visible flinch when Sara stands too close, and maybe she shouldn't have done it, but dammit Anna didn't have the right to act all hopeless and scared in front of her and not tell her _why_. Anna's told her everything in that creepy room upstairs, even the stuff she's left out when telling Greg his long-awaited story last night. Sara knew all the things that made her scared and guilty; so why wasn't she letting her help? Frustration and yeah, maybe there's a bit of irritation mixed in there too, gurgles and boils in the imaginary Dutch oven in Sara's chest, stifling heat spreading all across her chest and reaching her shoulders as the pot overflows. And just like when she'd slapped Greg, Sara closes her eyes tight and does what she has to do. She grasps both of Anna's firm shoulders, taking a split second to notice how muscled and sturdy they are. But even with all her muscle and sturdiness, Anna's like a limp rag when Sara whips her around to face her, the younger girl's eyes wide when Sara crushes her taller form into a hug.

Awkward is an understatement for whatever they're currently doing, with Sara's arms cinching so tight around Anna's middle she can feel the hard iron buttons that run down the girl's cotton shirt and Anna's head being oddly balanced atop hers. Not to mention that the recipient of the hug doesn't seem to want to move at all, preferring to stay stock still. Sara squeezes extra tight once before harrumphing into the wool weave of Anna's cloak and pulling away. And whatever happens next is on a whole other worldof awkward and surprising. Anna _actually_ pulls her closer and hugs her back.

Sara's gasp of surprise is hushed when she gets another faceful of Anna's cloak. This time it's her turn to stand stock still in another's embrace, but after the shock fades and the blush fighting for dominance over her cheeks finally settles, Sara hugs her back. She's fairly certain she hears Anna whisper out an 'I'm sorry' before the quiet of Beatrice's deserted house is filled with sobs.

It takes a while for Sara to finally calm the girl down, what with all the pent up guilt and sadness piling higher and higher on Anna's conscience. The younger girl cries muffled tears and sobs into the thin material of Sara's blouse until her eyes are as puffy as a bruise. Sara listens to her of course, listens to her like she's listened yesterday, with them both on the floor and Anna's head blubbering on her shoulder. At least now it's only sadness that falls over their shoulders like some shroud—not the mad craze that enveloped them and sent chills through Sara's bones. This time Anna recovers quicker than she did yesterday, the girl wiping away at her tear-stained face and sniffing loudly. "T-Thank you for, um, being so thoughtful." She gives Sara an adorably nervous smile. "I wasn't certain I could last a day with all that on my chest."

"You're welcome," Sara shrugs. "And you shouldn't keep all that stuff pent up in you anymore. Sooner or later you're going to explode with all the feelings you've been swallowing up to keep from anyone to see. And that's gonna be really hard to get back from."

Anna shrugs in return. "I'll try."

"You better." They both pull themselves up from the floor and Sara tugs Anna's hefty rucksack from her fingers. "You don't have to carry all the burdens yourself, Anna." Sara grins a bit. "You can always tell me what's wrong."

"I'll remember that." This time, Anna's smile is genuine.

Leaving the old house is a bit hard on everyone, even on Greg, who seemed to Sara oblivious to anything deeply depressing. The kid placed a cheery little yellow flower he'd probably found in his many adventures out in the yard onto the house's windowsill, saying goodbye to the spiders before finally running back up the path to meet them. His cheeks are tickled pink from the exertion and he grins, showing off the new tooth he'd recently exchanged for a quarter last week. Sara can't help smiling back at him. She sees from her peripheral that Anna's doing the same. "Finished saying goodbye?"

"Yeah!"

They all turn to where the forest begins, the leaves soughing above them and the trees looking all but recognizable. Greg's little hand worms into Sara's fist. He's still grinning when she looks down, but his eyes take in the forest ahead with more than a little apprehension in his wide-eyed gaze. Suddenly the rickety memory of the covered in those things Anna had called Edelwood makes her grip on his hand tighten. He looks up.

His eyes search hers for a second, and Sara's certain he can read right through her, but the kid just keeps silent and smiles even wider. "Ready to enter the Unknown?"

Sara meets Anna's much brighter gaze and sighs. "I've faced a crazy axe-girl in the dead of night; what's a little forest hike gonna do?" She looks ahead again before continuing. "Hell yeah I'm ready."

It turns out harder than Sara expected, especially with a dud foot in the process of healing. She can walk no problem now and she's sorta proud her walking stick is mostly used by Greg as a plaything now. But pain does still shoot up her ailing limb and without Anna trailing behind to keep her some company as the youngest member of their three-band team goes wandering off a few meters ahead, Sara's bitterly certain she'd be dead last. She's glad for the canopy of dying leaves to keep the sun from frying her though, and she couldn't help but admit that whatever this place was, it was worth looking at. Even the birds look amazing here, with species she's never seen before flit overhead in swarms of warm orange and brown. A pair of bluebirds eventually flutters down to a branch low enough for Greg to wave at them crazily and ask for directions to where Beatrice was. Sara raises an eyebrow. This wasn't the first time Greg had called out to a flock of birds, calling out to them about 'his bluebird friend Beatrice'.

"Isn't Beatrice a human now?" Sara directs her question to Anna, the girl walking a few steps ahead.

"Aye. Your friend Wirt gave her the scissors before he left." Anna looks back at her. "Why do you ask? Didn't I tell you everything already?"

"Y-Yeah. You did." Inexplicably, Sara gets a bit nervous when Anna's wide grey gaze falls over hers. "But, if she's human again, why ask the birds? They probably know less about where she is than we do."

Anna pauses and ponders this over. "I'm not certain. Beatrice was the one to snip off her family's wings, but she never told them how she got her cut. Greg probably doesn't know what she looks as a human, actually."

"That's kinda depressing." Sara feels the other girl's gaze on her again and scratches at the back of her head absently. _Again with all the flustering. What's wrong with me?_

"Don't take my word for it! All she's told me was that the gashes didn't set in immediately after cutting and that it was only during her search for her family that her back suddenly split open with wounds." Anna notices Sara's wince at the horrifying image in her head and she smiles, placating. "Greg's most probably playing. He's a child after all."

"Mhm. You're probably right."

The day passes mostly in that fashion, with the three of them making honest progress and managing to get to a high enough spot for them to see or hear if anyone would come by uninvited in the night. They make their camp on the highest point of a small hill and by the time Sara is settling in underneath her blanket consisting of Anna's tattered petticoat, she's grudgingly sure that she probably has a crush on the endearingly pale woodsman's daughter. This problem is also only made bigger when the girl decides to sleep back to back with her, sharing a blanket. Sara's never been so glad to have dark skin: it makes her raging blush all the more difficult to notice. She wraps an arm around Greg's cloak-covered form and tucks her face into his soft tangle of hair. She mumbles a goodnight to everyone and sleeps.

It's to Anna's tight grip on her shoulder that she wakes up to.

"Wha—?" Sara feels herself getting pulled up half-way to her feet, and in her mind the only thing she can think is how amazingly strong pretty Anna is, with her mound of bristling hair and thoughtful— "Sara, wake up!"

Sara wakes up for real that time, and almost faints when she sees that it's only her and Anna on the hilltop. The lump of Greg's cloaked form is gone. "Bloody he—where's Greg!?"

Anna doesn't bother answering, surprisingly quiet under pressure. All she does is pull Sara up until she's fully on her feet before speeding down the hill, practically dragging Sara down behind her. Sara's struck good luck by not taking off her shoes before sleeping that night, both her feet sore but mostly okay due to their sneaker coverings. They make it down the few steps to the foot of the hill and it is then that she notices the torch in Anna's other hand. "Didn't you have a lantern a while ago?"

"Greg brought it with him."

"Oh. Well, that's perfect." Sara awkwardly lets go of Anna's hand and notices with creeping dread the trees that look even stranger in the dark. And like the day before, they look completely foreign—especially the dirt path that's suddenly appeared at the base of the hill. "What is _wrong_ with this place? Everything's all mixed up and wonky. I'm sure as hell certain there wasn't a path there before."

Her cursing seems to be the only thing that could break through Anna's focused haze and the girl laughs a bit under her breath, moving the torch to light up the tiny shoeprints all over the path. "I'm sure we were all certain a path was never here before. But Greg seemed to have discovered it first."

"Well, let's get going then. Wirt is gonna _kill_ me after he finds out how many times I got Greg lost."

"Not if whatever's on the other end of the road's gonna kill you first." Anna's smile is audible from her voice. Sara notices the way the modern terms are accented in the other's girl's voice when she speaks and she thinks that it's absolutely cute. She shoves softly at the taller girl's shoulder. "You're getting very good at this snappy comeback thing."

The torch in Anna's hand moves forward. "I've been getting a lot of practice talking to Beatrice. It's the first time I've seen anyone talk the same way she did—it's refreshing to hear all the new words and abbreviations."

"That's me, refreshing people with my abbreviations."

A squirrel's sudden squeak makes both their hearts skip a beat and reminds them of Greg wandering off alone again.

Sara's gotten much more used to Anna's hand holding her own and she doesn't blush like a fucking idiot the next time the girl grabs at her arm and they both tumble and crack into the woods, feet kicking up dirt as they run towards the sound. Hundreds of red mammalian eyes follow their track as they delve much deeper into the forest, but Sara can't find it in herself to care if a scary monster decides to follow them. She picks up speed and finds herself matching Anna's easy speed.

She gets so used to the strain and pain shooting up her foot that she almost falls flat onto her face when she has to stop running. The path goes on further, but there's a small part branching out into a path lined with dreamy blue flowers. And a golden red light emanates from deeper down the path. "Gosh, there he is."

The seconds that it takes the both of them to reach the end of the path and see the low stone wall flash by Sara until she's standing in front of the wall herself, breath heaving and feet throbbing.

Anna's boring old green lantern is left burning at the foot of the wall, lighting up the time-smoothened stones. Mud scuffs at the stones and Sara doesn't waste time before vaulting to the other side and running into the clearing on the other side. The trees are much more barren than they are everywhere else in the forest, and the black sky is more than visible through the crisscross of branches. Even more visible through the thin fog that covers the place is Greg's voice, calling out from somewhere.

" _Lorna! Auntie Whispers! Yoo-whoo, anyone there?"_

Sara feels Anna come up behind her, holding onto her lantern now. "Greg! Hey, come here!"

" _Sara?"_

"Yeah, Sara. Anna and I were so worried! Let's get going!" Sara coughs roughly into her fist. In her normal voice she addresses Anna. "Can you see anything?"

"Nothing. This damn fog is too thick."

Sara curses into her fist and gnaws at the inside of her cheek. This place is giving her the creeps. "We need to get out of here, Greg! Come on, look for the light!"

" _But I can't! I need to visit Auntie Whispers and Lorna to see if she's doing all right!"_

Greg resumes his calling and Sara's about to call out again when the fog clears just enough so she can see the barest silhouette of the kid, her blood pumping in her veins so she can barely hear Anna saying that she's seen Greg too. Sara barrels straight for the rounded shape, nearing him in a split second and hearing his muffled calls get louder and louder. She tackles him to the ground.

Through her own gasping laughs Sara can hear Anna a few feet behind laughing and scolding Greg at the same time, the kid reciprocating a moment later. She manages to clear her head and pulls herself and Greg up. "Let's get going."

"But I—"

"Nope." This time it's Anna who speaks. "You're coming with us and we can visit this Lor—"

" _Who's there?"_

A door slams from somewhere in the fog and Sara feels herself blanch. Oh, she's too sleepy for all this shit.


	6. Tear in the Earth

**Chapter 6**

Ancient door hinges grate against each other, unseen in the fog.

The sound is soon overpowered by Greg's triumphant laugh. " _I knew it_! Lorna! It's—"

The child's words are cut off when Sara tackles him back to the ground, hands firmly pressing into his mouth. Anna's a meter or two away from them, but she covers the distance in three strides, the noise of her lantern clanging almost drowning out an unfamiliar voice gasping from somewhere ahead. Greg hears it too, it seems, and very nearly slips out of Sara's grasp, her hands still holding fast to cover his running mouth. "Shhhhh! Anna, I'm gonna need your help." Sara whispers, fighting to stand with Greg in her arms.

Anna reaches out to help, but sees the wide-eyed stare he turns on her and she pauses. The split second is enough for Greg to twist out of Sara's grip. "Lorna! Yoo-hoo! Where are you?"

A muted crash, then, the same unfamiliar voice speaks _. "Greg?"_

Anna is certain the voice must've said more, but just then the earth shakes so fierce it rips a jagged line deep into the land, dark trees uprooting from the ground and dirt raining down in hard clumps. Her whole body feels as if she's balancing on stilts and she falls hard onto her knees. Her own voice screaming is loud in her ears, loud enough to block out Sara's colourful cursing and Greg's yelp of surprise as the growing tear in the earth speeds toward him. Cold hard fear clogs her throat and Anna knows both her and Sara move at the same time, scrabbling to stand and get to the child.

Sara gets to him first; dark skin alight with adrenaline and what Anna's now noticed is the barely-there light of the lantern she's still got clutched in her fist. She expects the older girl to let out a string of profanities, but all that comes out is: "Gosh, we're getting outta here."

Somehow, Sara finds it in her to hoist Greg onto her shoulder and runs, Anna overtaking them and leading with the dim lantern-light. The ground below feels strangely brittle beneath Anna's heavy footsteps, the hand holding onto the lantern tightening. Her arm comes up higher to light up their surroundings, the fog around them thinner now, but revealing the line of unfamiliar birch trees that face them like a brick wall, the path they'd come through all gone now. Only the poor wall of smooth stones is left to mark the entrance to the meadow. But other than that, nothing is the same.

"Oh Lord." Anna whispers, her own voice so faint she can barely hear it. "The forest's changed."

And then she remembers the thinning fog and turns, grass swishing around the hem of her skirt. Lantern-light cuts through the remaining fog like butter, lighting up the tear in the ground and a girl on the other side, her skin so pale its catches the yellow light like candlewax. The girl's black eyes grow wide in the light and her mouth moves to say something—

The brittle ground below them all of the sudden gives and the girl disappears from her sight, their side of the crack dipping and breaking into smaller chunks of dirt and stone. Anna hears the few trees still remaining on their side snap into brittle splinters that rain down on her head and Sara screams when the force knocks her off her feet and into Anna's side. An elbow digs just below Anna's ribs and the combined weight of Sara and Greg flattens her body flush to the shaking ground. She struggles to take a breath, almost feeling her ribs strain to keep the weight from collapsing her lungs when she hears it—a whooshing sound, as cool and fresh as biting into an apple. Water.

Forming words is impossible, so Anna groans and coughs behind her teeth, spittle landing like pockmarks all over the clothed back that's pressing into her face. On normal circumstances, she would be able to roll the two off her with no trouble, but dirt and pebbles still rain down from above, the ground tearing the crack they've fallen into further. She's only ever heard of what earthquakes were by Beatrice, but Anna's sure this is what they must feel like, nothing seeming to make sense and everything just _shaking_. Anna's fighting to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head from lack of oxygen when Greg gasps from above.

"Lorna!"

Anna looks up, and five feet above them the candlewax girl (Anna hadn't caught her name) is extending a waxy hand down to pull them up. She says something, but by then Anna's eyes are shut and the only thing she can hear is her own ragged breath.

Slowly, the weight on her chest lessens until there's no more, and she cracks one eye open enough to see Sara lifting Greg above her head and hanging him to the pale girl above. Even the shaking's stopped; the rumbling descending back into the earth like some monster.

Soon all she feels is the apologetic voice of Sara and her warm hand on Anna's cheek. Anna would very much like to lose consciousness like this, but then trickling water sounds again and she stiffens. Sara's hand on her cheek shivers and loses some of its warmth. "Anna?"

At first it seems that she can only speak in coughs and gasps, but Anna fights with her damaged body, fights with it until she can speak. "Wa—the-there's—"

Coughs wrack her body so violently she has to sit up and finish the bout with her face pressed into Sara's shoulder. "Hey," Sara starts to rock her body back and forth, the action both calming and blushingly intimate. "Don't push yourself. Everything's fine. The shaking's stopped."

"No!" Anna swallows a cough and shrugs Sara off, her side leaning against the torn wall of dirt and stone. She couldn't speak, but she could still move. Her cold hands wrap around Sara's shoulders and she shoves the older girl forward, gesturing to the wax-girl above to pull Sara up. But by then the height separating them is a little more than six feet, and the wax-girl struggles to bend down far enough without falling in too. Anna is still hurting, but she lets her lantern clatter onto the ground and wraps her arms around Sara's middle, the girl holding back a squeak of surprise. It proves useless in any case, with Anna too weak to do anything more than lift Sara up a few inches. Nowhere close to Wax-girl's searching fist.

Her arms creak and unwind from Sara's middle, the muscles of her arms convulsing with fatigue and tension. Sara lands back onto the ground with a faint thump and she instantly turns to grab Anna's shoulders like she'd done back in Beatrice's house. "Take it easy! Nothing bad's gon—"

Anna isn't sure how she knows it, but she cuts off Sara's words and lifts her up again just as tiny pebbles start to jump into the air, the sound of gurgling water much louder now. Sara hears it too and she twists and struggles to grab at the wax-girl's hand. Wax-girl stars pulling and Greg grabs onto her dark dress and pulls as well, Sara rising up and up. She's a mere foot away from safety when the first wave of water rushes into the crack in the ground and knocks Anna clear off her feet, the water just reaching her knees but roiling in strong enough to suffocate her the moment she falls and her head goes under. Water surges into her nostrils and she knows it's getting deeper every moment she remains under, the act of pulling her head above water becoming harder and harder to do.

She doesn't hear the splash, but suddenly Sara's hand is in her hair and she's being pulled up. Her head comes out with a pop and a curtain of heavy brown hair plasters across her face and gets into her mouth. She manages to pull the lightest tendrils away and meet Sara's eyes. "What're you doing?! The water is going—"

"I know, Anna! But I'm not gonna leave you," Sara places a hand on the dirt (or river, as it seems that can be the only outcome of this whole flooding) wall to steady them both. Water drags at their clothes and reaches Sara's chest by the time Anna is able to grab back onto Wax-girl's hand. Anna's head goes under for a few more times, Sara always pulling her back up coughing and spitting out water, and she's the first to notice Greg's open-mouthed stare. Anna follows his gaze and feels all her strength leave her.

"Sara!"

The girl turns of course, but when Anna finally meets her eyes she can't bear to say it and can only point to the wave of water that's careening towards them, black water foaming up white and grey. Sara sees this too, and her grip on Anna's cloak tightens.

"What?" Wax-girl asks, seeing the wide-eyed fear on Sara's face and she turns to where Sara is looking. "What's –" The wax-girl splutters and blanches (if that's even possible) when she sees the wave. Anna feels her pale fingers tighten like a vice around both her wrists and suddenly she's being pulled out of the water, the sleeve of her blouse tearing at the seams. She's half-way out now, half her body still underwater—all the while the wave just inches closer, pulling chunks of earth from the sides of the quasi-river with no plans of stopping any time soon.

"Pull harder!" Anna screams, twisting just enough to see Sara still clutching desperately at her cloak and now her waist, the older girl's shorter frame just a head taller than the water. "Pull!"

"I-I can't!" Wax-girl gasps for breath and pulls one last time before her knees buckle and Anna sinks back half a foot, Sara's head now fully submerged in water. Anna slips a hand from Wax-girl's grip to pull Sara back up. It's easy enough to do, but when Sara's finished coughing out water from her lungs she holds onto a protruding tree root on the tunnel wall and shakes her head when Anna moves to wrap an arm around her.

"You go first. She can't carry us both on her own!"

Anna almost chokes on the water surrounding her. "But—"

"Don't worry!" Sara says. "I'll be fine."

"Heave…ho!" Greg's voice wafts down to Anna's ears and before she can reply, Wax-girl and Greg pull hard on her wrist until she's clambering up the bank, spare patches of grass the only thing she can grab onto. Dirt sticks to her pasty palms and she sees the bottoms of Greg's alien-looking shoes before she hears the scream.

Anna isn't sure who the scream belongs to, but when she finally swings her head around to see what all the commotion is about, Greg is the only one on the riverbank with her. The oncoming wave is gone, and so is Wax-girl. More screams (mostly Sara's, Anna notices) bubble up from below and water douses the bank in white foam enough to blind Anna for a moment. She hears herself heave in a breath and before she really knows what she's doing she's pushing Greg behind her and leaning into the water.

Wax-girl didn't know how to swim; Anna could tell by the cloud of white and green cloth that Sara's twisting into just to get the girl out of the water. Neither one of them surfaces.

"Sara!" Anna shouts, blood pounding loud and drum-like in her ears, like a countdown for how long Sara's down there. She feels the water lapping inches from her face and doesn't bother looking to see that the wave is coming in a manner of seconds. One of her pasty hands digs into the dirt deep enough for a proper handhold before she leans in further, snagging Sara's pant leg. "Sara!"

Cloth tears and Anna grapples at Sara and Wax-girl hard enough to break a few of her fingernails, red staining where she's still grasping Sara's pant leg.

"Heavens," Anna whispers, almost to herself. "I'll get you both out. Just wait."

Her hand lets go for a second to clutch at Sara's collar and Wax-girl's sleeve instead and then she pulls. The weight is unbelievable; even the years of hauling around firewood on her back couldn't prepare Anna for the weight that is two girls and their soaked clothing. But she does get one of them to the bank, Wax-girl tearing handfuls of dark grass from the ground while Sara is still getting pulled up. Anna meets Wax-girl's gaze, the girl's eyes droopy and tearful. Her mouth is a whole different story though, and the thin lips slowly pinch up into a delicate smile.

"Damn," Sara's voice is dreamy and unexpectedly giddy when she speaks half-way submerged in the river. "You're really pretty when you actually smile."

Wax-girl immediately colors and she splutters a bit. Anna can't explain the tiny seed of irritation that blooms in her tummy at the sight of it, but she just shakes her head and smiles along with the rest of them. The tiny seed is mostly gone when the next wave hits.

Everything is drowned out by water, all Anna's senses clogged with water and white noise. The wave pulls Wax-girl back into the river and would've done so with Anna too if she hadn't hooked her fingers into the dirt just minutes ago. Most of the fingers on that hand are probably broken now, but Anna can't find it in herself to care about a few cracked bones when she opens her eyes and sees Sara barely hanging on.

A quick glance behind her assures Anna that Greg wasn't affected by the wave and the child is still safely behind her, silent and detached from the whole situation. There's no sigh of relief, though.

"Sara!" Water dribbles down Anna's chin and she realizes that she's coughing, tremors shaking her body so badly she doesn't hear Sara at first.

"Let go!"

Even her coughs seem to stop when she hears Sara's words. "Are you crazy?"

"Just do it!" Sara grits her teeth and grabs onto one of Wax-girl's flailing arms, keeping her thin body relatively still. "You gotta get Greg outta here."

"But I can do this!"

Anna lets out a ragged breath and yanks roughly on Sara's hand, fighting with the river's current. Her knees slide and dig shallow grooves into the moist earth until she's closer to falling into the river than ever. And this time her hand serving as support is out of the dirt and holding onto Sara as well, broken fingers burning and bleeding at the strain.

"Anna!"

Anna frowns. "I'm not letting you go!"

"C'mon," Sara's fingers go slack. "Trust me."

"No way," ugly fat tears run down Anna's cheeks. "I'll get you out of this. I swear."

"There's no need."

Sara grins up at her (Anna's stomach fills with butterflies at that) and points. Anna turns to look and there's another wave coming, larger and stronger than the ones before. The butterflies immediately turn into rocks in her belly and just as she's about to pull harder; Sara slips her hand from her grip. Sara and Wax-girl tumble back into the water with a splash of white foam. Anna feels like the world just might be exploding all around her.

"Sara! What—why in the— good Lord!"

Anna's positive she might've jumped into the water as well if Sara's head hadn't popped out. And the grin is still there. "We'll find each other! Get Greg somewhere safe."

* * *

"Agh!" Beatrice screams loud and long into her hands.

The sound barely slips between her fingers, but in her head the sound fuels _its_ joy. _It's_ laughing in her head now, each guffaw prompting the curling boughs that grow from her back to sprout new branches. A fresh needle of pain pricks her spin with each new branch, but all Beatrice can think of is how the sprouts readily block out the tinniest slits of forest canopy she can still see when she looks up. Now even the older, kinder shades of burgundy and orange leaves are blocked out by stark bone-white branches that don't even bear leaves of their own.

" _I take it your 'redecorating' didn't go so well?"_

"Don't talk to me." Unnoticed by both the girl and the dark entity partially possessing her, Beatrice shakes her head and wriggles her fingers, imaginary bird feathers ruffling with irritation. "I'll make sure they make it out safe."

" _Oh? But_ _how, pray tell, will you do that? Wouldn't it be better if you just let little Gregory and his friends find us? You wouldn't have to keep hiding in this pitiful wood and suffer the cold."_

"Shut up."

Beatrice hates the muddy old clearing and the cold with every fibre of her being, but the idea of the Beast getting his greedy hands on Greg makes the simmering anger in her gut boil over and Beatrice holds onto that anger as best as she can, finding the strength in her to fight off the silky-soft tendrils of the Beast's presence in her mind. So she closes her eyes like every other night, although this time she's not tinkering with the forest to separate herself and Greg further but to help out a few of his friends.

The whole forest looms behind her eyelids, the new river she'd made moments ago gushing silver and white. Two people are struggling in the water.

She looks back at how she didn't notice at first, when she was doing her increasingly constant hobby of jumbling up the whole layout of this place that the river she was at that point in time coaxing into possibly running through a small meadow instead would turn out separating Greg from one of the two people Beatrice could trust with keeping him safe. And now Greg is stuck in a creepy meadow with one of his companions lost in the river. _At least Anna's with him, but that Lorna girl can't be good news._

Now, Beatrice doesn't believe in every bit of traveling talk her mother could haggle out of a normal day's visit to the market—not back then and not now that she's perpetually stuck in the woods forever. But with all the information Beatrice has on the pale lass drowning alongside Sara being the one story of some girl living in the middle of a meadow and acting as a witch's apprentice, she didn't really have a choice but be a bit doubtful. Or maybe that's just her usual cynical way of seeing things.

 _That doesn't matter._ Beatrice thinks, brows pulling together. _If I can't help him out myself, I'll make sure Sara and Anna can._

She sees the river still running mad, water pulling down the few trees still rooted to its bank. It's too young and new to push into drying up into a shallow stream and too fast to manoeuvre into an easier spot for the drowning girls to latch onto a tree trunk or something to help them out of the water. Beatrice grabs at the tattered hem of her dress and grips hard, thinking.

" _Don't bother, Bird. You won't save them. They'll soon be part of Enoch's field any moment now."_

Daggers of pain that remind her of popping her ribs back into place how many days ago stab and twist in her gut and she gasps, her already blackened fingers digging tiny troughs through the mud. Just like that Beatrice's concentration breaks and suddenly she's back in the darkened forest clearing, crouching in muddy earth and looking after the Beast's stupid campfire. "What're you _doing_?" She gasps out, biting into the back of her hand to keep from screaming. _It_ starts to laugh again.

" _You don't think I'm getting tired of waiting, Beatrice?"_

Beatrice coughs and feels another invisible dagger slide into her middle. She can't speak and lets the Beast continue. _"Don't think I've been letting you rearrange this forest without it having a few consequences. I thought you would've realized fighting me was futile—but I guess your bird-sized brain still remains in that thick skull of yours."_

Without closing her eyes Beatrice sees flashes of Sara and Lorna still getting dragged farther and farther away, the water mercilessly ploughing over them in giant waves. _"My forest will stay as it is and soon enough Gregory will find you. Ah, I'm already imagining the face you'll make when I'm finally able to have a taste of the oil he'll make."_

"No. Not while I'm still here."

" _But for how long will you last?"_

Then all at once the blades dig into Beatrice all at the same time and she screeches so loud the birds brave enough to perch on her branches take to the air, their tiny wings flapping the last thing she hears before blacking out. The last thing she sees, though, is the lighting that draws a jagged line through the dark sky.

* * *

The candles Anna found in Wax-girl's home are just stubs of drying wax by the time she wakes up. It's chilly and the house is dark save for the pearly light that shines through the windows, metal grills that bar it from both sides drawing sharp shadows into the polished wood floors. Polished, but not cleaned for at least a week probably, since grey dust sticks to Anna's exposed skin when she rolls over.

Her body protests after enduring a night on the floor, but she sucks in her groan of pain and stumbles to stand. All the candles are spent and had no hope to be used again, but Anna finds a few new candles in the cupboards and she picks two to light, sticking them into the soft wax that's pooled across the table top. She finds the matchbox and shakes it to see how many remain, her eyes wandering over to look out the window.

 _The rain's stopped_ , Anna notices, and her hands falter when she pulls a matchstick from the box. She's moving to light one of the candles when acid rises up in her throat. _She's gone._ A tiny voice in her head says. _She's gone and it's all your fault_.

"I'm not listening." Anna says, whispering so that only she hears. "Sara's fine. She always is."

 _Just like Beatrice and Father. You lose everyone._

Anna strikes the match but her trembling fingers let it fall to the floor, its tiny flame going out and leaving a faint ribbon of white smoke to waft up into her nose. "That's not true. I'll save everyone—just you watch."

The voice doesn't answer, and Anna absentmindedly wipes at the sheen of sweat on her forehead. She should really stop talking to herself.

"I'll get them all back. Greg and I will leave just as soon as I get breakfast ready and we'll find them somehow." Anna manages to grin softly to herself. "Definitely."

Just then Anna notices the silence that surrounds her. "Greg?"

When no voice answers, the voice in her head speaks again. _You've lost Greg now._

"No," Anna drops the whole box of matches fall to the floor and she sprints out of the house. The sight of the river still gushing heartily in front of her makes a terrible pain prickle in her stomach, but Anna pushes it away with a shake of her head and continues sprinting, scanning the ground for Greg's small footprints. She finds none.

"Greg!"

Last night was the first time Greg's seen her in the state she'd been, crying like a child even younger than him. He'd offered her a hug, Anna now remembers, but she'd shrugged him off and fell fast asleep.

 _He must've gone looking for them all by himself_. Anna realizes, panic rising in her like vomit. It wouldn't be impossible with him having a knack for going off on his own. Anna's feet move faster until she's behind the house and gasping for breath.

"Greg? Greg!" Anna calls, eyes roving around the muted landscape. The land behind the house doesn't seem to have been changed through the night like everything else, and the same scraggly black trees protrude from the earth like twigs along with a murky grey-green pool of water sits just meters from a broken back window. There are no footprints near the pond's bank, and a dip in water very near ice cold would be idiotic.

The faintest sound of something creaking from inside the house makes Anna's thoughts pause. In a second she inside the house and up the stairs, head already painting millions of possible things she would see.

"Greg?"

The stairs lead directly into a room with a slanted ceiling, light from its windows barely able to show Anna the two well-made beds and matching chest of clothes on either side of it. One bed has a low bedside table and a book is balanced on top of it. Normally, she'd take a look at the book first, but this time Anna kneels down to be as near to Greg's much shorter height.

The child is under the bedside table and has his knees tucked into his chest, shadows making it impossible for Anna to get a clear view of his face. She tries to smile. "I was so worried! I looked everywhere for you."

"Oh, um, sorry for making you worry." Greg says, shrinking away.

"Ah, it's alright." Anna tastes the new words she's heard Sara use a lot and hopes it doesn't sound too awkward. "Why don't you come down and help me make some breakfast?"

Greg gives her a small, non-committal shrug and sniffles. "I might ruin it."

A single, lucky shard of light bounces around the room to reflect the tiniest teardrop on Greg's cheek, Anna feeling her insides twist with guilt. "Oh," She mumbles, trying to mask her frown although she knows Greg isn't looking at her. "That can't be true. You've—"

" _I ruin everything!"_

The child slams his balled fists against the floor; the book toppling from the table top and sending shivers up Anna's spine. Unconsciously, her hands lift up to tangle in her hair, tugging at the ends until her scalp aches. She searches her head for anything to say, but it's the first time she's done anything close to this, the first time she's ever comforted a child. Her throat goes dry and the cogs in her brain refuse to move, Greg's soft sniffles all she can hear. She tugs on her hair harder.

"Ah—um, Greg—" The broken words squeeze out of her mouth, Greg turning to face her.

His eyes are teary, but they're more angry than sad; with his eyebrows tightly draw together and his cheeks coloring with frustration. Anna makes an effort to meet his eyes, and she's surprised when Greg is the first to look down. He draws his knees even closer to his chest until he's practically a ball.

"Sorry for yelling," it's barely a murmur, but Anna hears it and she chuckles breathlessly.

"D'you—" Anna scrunches up her mouth and struggles to remember Sara and Greg's foreign way of saying their words. "D'you want to tell me about all _this_?" She gestures vaguely to the child's teary eyes.

"Not really."

"But it'll make you feel better," Anna tries, advancing the littlest inch forward. Suddenly Sara's words pop into her head. "It's not very good to keep your feelings all pent up like that."

A silence stretches out after she speaks, the cobwebs up on the rafters dancing in the thin wisps of breeze that manage to get through. Anna can't count how many minutes must've passed, but she's fairly sure it must've been quite some time since the strands of hair she's accidentally tugged from her scalp is steadily growing into a healthy-looking handful. Her anxiety too, is growing, growing until she's a step away from drowning herself in her sticky perspiration. _I said something wrong._

"Okay." Greg says finally. "I'll—I'll tell ya."

He doesn't look up when he begins. "At first, when me and Sara first got here, I was really excited to see all my friends again. I couldn't tell anyone back home about the Unknown except for Wirt, and I knew p-people would laugh if I told them." The child's eyes cloud and perhaps he's recalling some old memory, but Anna can't quite dwell on the faraway look when the clouded orbs regain focus. "And I was so excited—you know?"

Greg scrubs mechanically at his face to get rid of the tears. "But—but everything I do makes bad stuff happen. And I _hurt_ people."

"That's normal, child. You can't always be perfect."

"But I'm never doing things right _._ " A sob escapes Greg's pursed mouth and Anna can't help but feel a bit teary-eyed herself. "It's my fault Sara and Lorna fell into the river."

 _Lorna._ Anna thinks. _So that's her name._

She shakes her head. She can think about Wax-girl and her peculiar name later. "Well, you won't be able to help Sara and Lorna when you're up here, won't you? We'll find the both of them in no time."

"I'm not leaving." Another sniffle; this time louder, "I'll…I'll ruin everything and get us even more lost if I come."

The sobs and sniffles don't get any louder, but the tears fall quicker now, fat drops rolling down the child's face and collecting under the rounded point of his chin. It's a terribly quiet kind of blubbering, and the tiny thorn in Anna's heart digs that little inch deeper. And though she doesn't have an inkling of reassurance that she's going about this whole 'consoling' business the right way, Anna doesn't stop herself from moving forward and pulling Greg into her arms.

Tears immediately soak into her blouse. "Shh, it's not your fault. It—It's mine."

"How? You tried to save them. You're a hero."

Maybe it would've been better if Anna had said she wasn't strong enough to pull Lorna and Sara out of the water; said that the whole mess of them losing Sara was all because she wasn't able to save her in time. But just as she's forming her next words, her eyes catch something distinctly auburn and painfully familiar. Curling around Greg's arm, its delicate tendrils so tenuous the child can't feel it climbing up his shoulder, is an Edelwood sapling. Oil with no soul to imbue it with the magic it needs glints black on the sapling's curled end. "Greg?"

The child's eyes move to look up at her. "What?"

"Remember that story I told you before we left Beatrice's house?"

"Yeah!" A hiccup punctuates Greg's reply, and Anna can already see the slight improvement in the child's disposition. "That's when you said Beatrice went missing."

"Mhm," Anna finds that telling Sara the truth was much easier, probably because they barely knew each other at the time and all she'd said didn't really make a lot of sense or matter to the other girl. Unlike with Greg, the whole secret she's about to share concerning him quite _a lot_. "Well, that story has some parts missing."

" _What?_ Tell me!"

Anna grins just a bit. "You have to try and guess."

And when Greg is too busy contemplating over this new addition to the story, Anna takes a firm hold of the Edelwood sapling and tugs. It uproots without a sound and the thing is quickly tucked under her skirts.

"Ok," Greg finally shuffles off of Anna's lap until he's sitting across from her, back leaning against the leg of the bedside table. "I don't have any ideas. Can you tell me _now_?"

"Of c-course." Anna reaches behind her and takes the sapling out, oil still dripping from its twisting tendrils. "It all began with this."

Just like that, Greg's eyes grow into the size of saucers, all the color in his cheeks draining. "W-What are you doing with Edelwood? Anna?" His sneakers squeak against the floor when he stands, already backing away.

"Don't—" Anna hears the own panic in her voice and stands as well, taking a calming breath. "Don't be afraid."

But the change is already happening, her body free of the Beast's presence but still accustomed to the taste and feel of the oil on her skin and in her blood, the usually pale familiarity of her hand turning black and speckled with deep pockmarks. Even when she loosens her grip and the sapling falls limply to the floor, the change doesn't stop or lessen, blemishes climbing up her hand and under her sleeve. She feels them stop at her neck, the artery there jumping against her skin to keep the infection at bay. It's been so long; yet the feeling of fighting for dominance over her own body is still so eerily familiar to Anna.

Warmth blooms in her chest when the ice-cold infection stops growing, the horrifying holes in her skin starting to fill up again. Anna kicks away the sapling and steps forward, Greg shrinking away.

"It's still me, child."

"T-The Beast used to call me that."

Anna pauses. "Excuse me?"

"The Beast!" Greg exclaims, body fitting into snugly into a corner in the wall. "He used to call me 'child'; just like y-you."

The child's lip wobbles and his eyebrows draw together, Edelwood popping up to twine in his ankles when he realizes. _"Y-You're the Beast."_

"I _was_ the Beast." Anna clarifies, raising her hand again to show the infection slowly retreating into nothing. "Now I'm just Anna."

"But—b-but the Woodsman—" Greg stumbles over his words and even more saplings jump to cover his legs and root him firmly to the ground. "He killed the Beast."

Lighting jolts in Anna's spine when she sees the Edelwood at Greg's feet and she closes the distance between them, her shadow falling over the child's defensive stance. "Father killed the Beast when it was using my body as a vessel for its own purposes. No soul can actually kill the Beast. It's the forest itself."

Since Greg is too shaky to reply, Anna kneels down until she's eyelevel and continues. "The Beast can control the whole Forest; and the Edelwood trees are its own creation to feed its greedy mouth. And he's always looking for a new vessel."

"What's…" Greg begins, looking into Anna's gaze through his fingers. "What's a vessel?"

Anna beams at him and laughs a bit breathlessly. "It's another word for container."

"Like Tupperware? Why would the Beast need something like that?"

"I-I'm not sure about this _tapware_ you're referring to," Anna pauses, thinking over her answer. "But the Beast needs these vessels or containers to move around and do stuff like talk to people. It could never do that before getting a vessel to control."

"Oh." Greg relaxes a bit and sits across from her again, the Edelwood saplings retreating when his bad mood disappears. "Is carrying around the Beast in your body painful?"

"Not really," Anna lies, looking back on the countless hours of stabbing pain whenever she tried to reach out and gain control of her body again.

"But how'd you get your body back?"

Greg's question strikes home and Anna feels her heart pumping just a bit faster. "When you and your brother left to go home, Fa—the Woodsman, realized that the Beast was simply using him to cut down the Edelwood trees for the Beast's own soul—the one living in the lantern. When the Woodsman blew out the lantern, the Beast was snuffed out along with it, leaving me free to control my body again."

"Wowie." Greg whispers; fear all gone now and replaced with fascination.

"Aye, it's quite the story." Anna takes a hold of the remaining Edelwood curling around Greg's feet and pulls them out. "But it's not quite done yet."

They spend much longer than Anna expects; the sun outside rising high enough to light up the whole two-person bedroom. Anna chronicles everything she's told Sara to the child, her soul weighing less and less the more she confesses to. She tells the child of her rising suspicions on Beatrice being the Beast's new vessel, tells him of the Edelwood that grows over him is the Beast's doing because Greg has been the only person to ever escape the Beast's thirst for human souls.

"The Beast wants your soul the most." Anna says, Greg's shoulders firmly in her grip. "It feeds on your bouts of sadness, and being hopeless makes you more susceptible to his call."

Greg looks just a bit spooked at her words, but the wise glint in his eyes makes Anna certain that the child understands her perfectly. He grins up at her. "Then I'll always be happy! That ugly ol' Beast won't know what's coming to him!"

Anna sighs, laughs, and stands. "Alright. That's enough storytelling for one day. Let's get onto that breakfast already; I'm starving."

"Me too!"

* * *

 **Really close to finishing up this fic, hope you guys enjoyed the update!**


	7. Adelaide's Pasture

Water involuntarily surges into Sara's lungs when Lorna suddenly jolts in her grip. The jolt leaves Sara reeling and scrabbling for a better grip at the other girl's clothes, fingers digging in hard enough for her to feel the girl's thin hipbones. Black spots blur and speckle her vision, the things her eyes can make out switching from the dark sky above the water's surface and white bubbles when the water laps over her head. Sara can't remember how long it's been since separating from Greg and Anna, and maybe that's why she doesn't notice at first, the fact that they seem to have stopped moving with the current.

The next thing that registers is the gasp.

Sara fights to keep her head up, her neck aching against the blue-black water. The moonlight is partially obscured by the treetops, but there's enough light for Sara to see the sickly girl who couldn't swim desperately clawing at a rotting stump's lowest branches, trying to pull the both of them up. Sara's chest burns both from the water filling her lungs and the hope lying heavy against her ribcage.

She grabs handfuls of the struggling girl's dress, pulling herself up until she's able to grab onto the branch as well.

"Alright." Sara takes a moment to meet the girl's lime green and still tearful eyes. "Ju-Just scream really _really_ loud if you start letting go."

The girl Sara is embarrassed to admit she doesn't know the name of nods mutely and pulls. Sara pulls alongside her; muscles straining to the point that she may just tear something. The old stump groans but doesn't loosen its grip on the earth, roots holding strong as Sara finally pulls herself out of the water just enough for her arm to reach over and feel the underbrush and soft dirt beneath her palm. Instinctively her fingers dig into the dirt and she drags her body up, feet kicking for momentum and balance when her knees are finally high up enough to scrape against the steep riverbank.

Sara knows the other girl is still labouring to get out of the water and that thought powers her through the last few tugs on the tree root until she's gasping and coughing into the ground. Water laced with thin strings of blood vacate her lungs until the burning is mostly gone, a dull ache all that's left.

None of the hope weighting down on her ribs lessens though, and Sara spins on the balls of her knees, grabbing at the girl below. She blinks away water. "Hold on tight."

Decomposing leaves crunch and tear underneath as Sara pulls the girl out of the water, noticing the remaining tears left on the stump's softening bark. They're lined with blood, and Sara's heart softens when she sees the blood staining her hands from the sickly girl's fingertips. The last bit of strength she miraculously still has pours into the bulging muscles of her arms, all her other limbs going soft as her grip on the girl's hand grows ever tighter. Her legs can barely keep themselves steadily buried in the layers and layers of brown leaves and she very nearly falls back into the water when one of the girl's snow-white hands slips from her grip.

Panic strikes a sharp and distorted tune in Sara's head and the running water is all of a sudden inches from her face, her balance failing and the other girl sinking further into the water. They both let out a scream, one garbled and partially coming from underwater, and Sara's keening loud in her ears. Their faces are pulled close together by their teetering balance and the strong current, Sara's eyes automatically drawn to the vein straining underneath the pale skin of the girl's neck as she struggles against the grabby water. But the one bony hand still in Sara's grip is cold and slippery with water, making things even harder for the both of them.

"You gotta hold on with both hands!" Sara yells over the din of bubbling water, hoping the sickly girl is still sane enough to understand her.

It turns out she is, but the water drowns out her reply and all Sara gets is a facefull of ice-cold river water. Spitting and blinking out water, Sara thrusts her left knee deeper into the ground while planting her right foot onto the base of the tree stump. The stump moves a smidge, and Sara knows that she only has one chance for this to work. Otherwise, she'll either be left alone on the riverbank or join the girl she still doesn't know the name to back in the water.

Sara takes a breath. "It's Sara."

" _What?"_ Sara is only guessing this is what the other girl might've said, since water still blurs over her feeble words. But she answers anyway.

"My name's Sara. What's yours?"

There's a pause, the pasty fingers tighten, then: "My name is Lorna."

A single chuckle escapes Sara's mouth. "Ok then, Lorna. All I want you to do right now is to kick your legs. Yea—Yeah. Like that. Just keep doing that."

Even more water blinds Sara and little droplets dance on her eyelashes. Lorna surely isn't a swimmer, but at least she's able to follow instructions. "Lorna?"

"Hm?"

Sara fixes her gaze on their joined hands and feels the semi-solid mass of tree stump against one of her feet. "This'll hurt quite a bit."

And then she pulls, Lorna's sleeve tearing from its seams and the tree stump groaning. The stump doesn't move at first, just cracks in places where its old bark is thinnest. Soon all the bark is stripped from the side Sara's pushing her foot into, the blackish wood underneath smooth and surprisingly free of rot. It doesn't move when Sara pushes more weight onto it, so she just prays it will hold strong and pushes hard against it, her body struggling up the bank.

Lorna struggles and flails the whole way, her one arm still trying to grab onto Sara but always getting pushed away by the water. When she does get it out, it flops past where Sara's basically cutting off circulation to the fingers of her one hand and instead lands over the crown of Sara's head, Lorna's shaky fingers tugging hard on the strands.

"Aghh—Hey!" Sara grinds her teeth together and clamps her mouth shut with a loud click, muffling her words. She shuts her eyes too, trying to force the pain fixated on her scalp out of her head.

"So—Sorry!"

The hand in her hair lets go and Lorna's body slides back a foot down the bank, Sara dragging along behind her. Her eyes fly back open and she doesn't have time to actually register the seconds between her foot slamming hard against the tree stump's remaining bit of trunk and its tangled roots bursting out of the ground with a heavy shower of dirt. The tree stump's uprooted and rolling into the gurgling river a moment later.

" _Fuck!"_ With no foothold, the current still whirling well above Lorna's waist takes its hold on Sara too, pulling on her arms hard enough to send her sprawling and gasping on her chest, dirt filling her open mouth. All she hears is the river roaring just feet from her head and she sees Lorna already breaking into tears.

Sara _could_ think up a plan that would have a fifty-fifty percent chance of succeeding in seconds, but she can't help superimposing her mental image of Greg crying and struggling in his dream-like trance over Lorna's own bawling face. And she could never think straight when it came to that kid.

So she has no plan, just the littlest bit of energy she still has left mixed in with adrenaline.

Lorna's scream cracks through Sara's train of thought and sends her spiralling back to the muddy riverbank, the uprooted tree stump, and both of their imminent deaths. Twigs and pointy, partially decomposed leaves scrape hard and painfully on Sara's belly when they both slide another foot lower. Lorna's screams are most probably getting louder, but Sara could only block them out as she collects her strength, everything slowing into almost a halt. She hears her heartbeat thumping in her head like some time bomb and she counts along to each beat; _one, two…_

 _Three._

Complete silence reigns over everything the second Sara bolts up and practically tears Lorna from the water, something somewhere tearing and ripping. Her throat closes up and only allows the tiniest bit of air to get into her lungs, so when Lorna is finally out of the water and lying beside her, Sara's to busy catching her breath to hear her scream again.

There's no blood anywhere, so Sara has no idea what to do save for roll Lorna onto her back. That seems to cause the girl even more pain though, and she rolls herself back onto her side. Tears stream from her face but Sara's sure they aren't from distress or any other form of sadness; just good ol' physical pain.

"Wha-What's wrong?" Sara asks, her hands shaking and tucked at her sides. She's afraid to cause any more pain for the girl.

It takes Lorna quite a long time to answer and Sara realizes that the pale girl herself doesn't know. But all of a sudden her line-green eyes widen and she speaks. "It's m-my should— _ugh_ "

Lorna's eyes close tight and no more words escape her mouth. Sara feels like she just might collapse with all this stress gnawing on her insides on a daily basis, but she bites the inside of her cheek and wills herself to breathe normally, the shaking in her hands slowly fading. She takes another breath to really clear her mind and think of something to do. "Ha. We'll look at your shoulder when we find somewhere safe for the night."

Normally, Sara would've been able to drape Lorna across her shoulders and carry her via a fireman's lift, but with both fatigue and the fact that Lorna's many petticoats and whatever else is below her poofy dress is all soaking wet and _heavy,_ that wouldn't be happening very soon. The very best Sara can manage is pulling them both up until they're out of the riverbank and on flat ground.

It's not very comfortable (alright, it's downright painful) but neither of them feel like complaining so Sara settles there and starts ripping into Lorna's sleeve.

"No—U-um…" Lorna says, flinching away and holding the tattered threads of her sleeve together. She's barely able to move at this point, too tired and in pain to do much more than whimper and heave in breath after breath. But even through the tight grimace and the watery eyes, she holds strong and leans away further when Sara approaches again. "I—I can handle it."

"No, you can't. Stop being a big baby." Sara hears her own voice echo in the air between them and knows she's getting irritated, the lack of both sleep and food drawing her brows together and making her frown. Empathy was never one of the emotions Sara lacked expressing, but now she finds herself working very hard just to feel sorry for the injured girl before her. She's mostly irritated, actually.

 _Ugh, I really need some sleep._ Sara thinks, blinking rapidly and wiping her face with her muddy shirt.

The sky above them, once dark and devoid of stars while they were in the river, is suddenly much brighter, clouds marking themselves into the expanse of dusky grey. Morning must've come sometime during Sara's rescuing exploit just minutes before. She finds patience through the light touch of the earliest sunlight that climbs and crawls up the east side, skirting the surface of the river and traversing the riverbank. There Sara sees the shallow dent where the tree stump used to be, the dent in the earth right next to the muddy scuff marks that consist of smeared handprints and the familiar pattern on the soles of Sara's sneakers. The weight of what she'd been through all of a sudden rests heavy on her shoulders.

"My apologies," Lorna says.

Her voice surprises Sara out of her reverie and she offers a weak smile. "I should be the one saying that."

Birds perching on the branches above them shake the sleep from their feathers and soon birdsong punctuates the steady blub and rush of the river. In the light Sara realizes that the river looks bright and cheery, bubbling merrily and looking like a picture she might've seen if she'd typed in 'nature' on Google Images. Everything in the Unknown seems like a picture from the pages of a story book, now that Sara really thought about it, with the colourful birds and autumn leaves hiding monsters just like in a fairy tale. The thought makes her chew on the inside of her cheek again.

Their silence is filled forest sounds so Sara isn't certain whether she should call it a silence at all. Though, she doesn't make an effort to end the almost-silence either, choosing for maybe the first time in her life to stay silent and enjoy the view. More time passes and soon pale yellow light slips between the thick cover of leaves above them to dot Sara's skin with tiny pinpricks of sunlight. The light illuminates Lorna as well, pale yellows—almost white—making the nearly undetectable warm tones in her pasty skin shine ruddy and bright. That's not the only thing it lights up Sara soon realizes, when she sees the purple and blue bruise peeking between the torn cloth of Lorna's sleeve.

For one reason or other, the next time Sara shuffles next to her, Lorna doesn't flinch or move away, just sits there and looks at the same red-gold landscape unfolding around them.

When Sara tears the girl's sleeve the rest of the way off and gently folds the muddy cloth into a neat square, it's not with explicit permission from Lorna, but Sara's half-asleep already and the bruise still needs tending to. So she gets onto it, poking and prodding at the soft flesh on Lorna's shoulder as gently as she could with her numbing fingers. The bone doesn't seem fractured or dislocated, but the bruise stretches from her bony shoulder to where her dress still covers her chest. It would be better to see where exactly the bruise ended, but Sara knows that she could only go so far without the girl shying away again. She sighs.

"Did you bump your shoulder against anything?"

There's a slight gasp and shuffling petticoats before Lorna's reply comes. Sara realizes that the girl was almost sleeping. "Nay, I did not. The contusion came before my body touched land."

"Hm." The way Lorna speaks makes Sara's skin prickle and her fingers still on their work. She wonders for the thousandth time what the heck this place was, gathering her words at the same time. "Can you remember how you might've gotten it?"

"You were pulling me out of the water, miss." Lorna says, turning her head to meet Sara's eyes. "The tree stump fell into the water and your grip on my hand tightened so fast and when you pulled, something in my shoulder…ah, burst."

Sara blinks, recalling when she'd heard something tear just before getting Lorna to the bank. She grimaces. "This'll be a muscle tear, then."

"Pardon? A _m-muscle_ tear?"

Lorna swivels at the wait so fast her bruise smarts and she hisses, fingers curling into fists. Sara feels the all-too familiar feeling of empathy welling in her chest a moment later. "A muscle tear's no big deal; really. It'll hurt, but it's nothing you can't handle."

"Aye. I hope so." Lorna whispers, and Sara hears her apprehension.

Sara stands, picking up the torn up remains of the sleeve. Lorna inhales sharply when she leaves and takes a hold of her exposed ankle. "Where ever are you going? Please don't leave."

Though Sara doesn't mean to, she somehow sees Wirt when she meets Lorna's eyes, the bubbling nervousness and the twitchy way she moved about her all too familiar. It wasn't unlike the way Anna acted sometimes, but Anna herself was a world away from either Lorna or Wirt, with her anxiety coming from years of no one to talk to save her father and not from some predisposition that being silent would keep people from noticing all their flaws. And Sara knows for a fact that isn't true, because people talk— no matter how much you cocoon yourself in shadows or hide from their stares.

"I'm just gonna clean this up," Sara says, raising the hand she's using to hold onto the ripped sleeve. "You need a bandage, yeah?"

"Y-Yeah." The way Lorna replies is slow and the word rolls off her tongue incongruously, like it's never meant to be said in her voice.

Sara skids and slides down the slippery bank until she's kneeling a foot from the water's edge. The water's already a deep blue this close to the bank, a cold thrill running up her arms when she dips her hands into the current and scrubs the dirty sleeve between her palms. Brown mud and miniscule pebbles float and skim the white surface before the water whisks them away and out of sight, the sleeve's fragile threads snapping when Sara pulls on its seam. The sleeve unfolds underneath the water and the remaining threads holding it together are pulled into the current as well, leaving a piece of thick, deep green woollen fabric still dotted with bits of mud even the strong current couldn't wash out. The weave is incredibly rough and uneven, with bits of the wool fibres digging into the skin of her hands.

Again the overly dense burden of the events of the past few days crashes back down onto Sara's shoulders. The cheery but at the same time haunting woods presses into her chest and head even when she slips her eyes shut, everything and nothing making sense all at the same time. Finally, Sara decides that she should really look into her accumulating observations and questions about the Unknown.

Anna's told her everything to do about the Beast, but the girl never knew anything about this place other than the fact that it's nowhere on Earth (never mind Aberdale), and escape from it is almost completely impossible without a guide.

Sara's infinitely thankful for Anna on that account, because even if the girl says her father the Woodsman would've been a much better guide, Sara is sure if Greg and her had been alone through this they would be lost in the Unknown forever. It doesn't stop her from wondering though: if all you need is a guide, then why are there people actually _living_ here? Anna and her father are guides and would of course stay, but Beatrice has surely stayed here in the Unknown, and occasionally Sara does see thin chimney smoke rise in the sky during the day. Chimneys means a house somewhere, and a house points to people decidedly staying in this strange place 'cause they want to. Like Lorna, for example. The girl's probably lived in the Unknown for most of her life.

And why can't she remember what happened before she and Greg got here? Since the very moment they arrived; walking down an unfamiliar path in the middle of the woods, Sara's memory of the past few minutes before then are all blank. When she'd asked Greg before, the kid didn't seem to remember either. It's all very strange and eerie to Sara. But the strangest and eeriest thing is she's slowly getting used to the Unknown's surprises and mystery.

Slowly, Sara's thoughts drip on and on until they're all gone and she pushes herself up, making her way back to Lorna's side and sitting behind her. Wrapping the soggy bandage around Lorna's bony shoulder is surprisingly easy, the girl somehow used to pain and her pointy joins making good handholds for the bandage to cling to. A simple knot ties the whole thing tight.

"Thank you, um… Sara."

"No problem."

And without either of them saying it, they move to look for a nice place to rest for a bit.

Sara snuggles herself into the rough trunk of a poplar, the light slipping through its branches much brighter than anywhere else. The light warms her body and dries the remaining droplets of water from her skin. Before she can fully close her eyes, she sees Lorna curling herself under the droopy branches of a willow, shadows almost completely swallowing her pale form.

Sara wakes hours later, the sky orange and the air cool with the approaching night. She joins Lorna (who's already been awake for the past few hours) for their first meal of the day. The meal is an array of little leaves and stalks that look to Sara very much like every other plant out there, but Lorna's glad enough the eat them, so she does too. Wild asparagus is the only thing that tastes the littlest bit familiar to her, and soon Sara is satiated and the tiny pile of greens is all eaten.

All that's left after that is Lorna's white apron, stained green in some places and threadbare at the edges. Sara's half-way done washing out the stains when she realizes that while it might've been Lorna who'd gathered the food and used a part of her own clothing to carry it back here, most—if not all—of the food Sara ate by herself. She freezes mid scrub and feels the lump of food in her stomach turn to cold stone. "You didn't eat before I woke up, did you?"

"Nay," Lorna answers, finishing the tight bun she's made and covering it up with a plain bonnet. "T'would have been impolite."

"Mm."

"What is the matter?"

"Er—well, you didn't eat all that much earlier." Sara struggles to get out one of the trickier stains. "All I'm saying is that you should eat. You can't feel very good with an empty stomach, right?"

It takes quite a while before Lorna speaks. "The empty stomach is bearable."

There's another silence; this time because Sara exhausts all her concentration into getting one of the berry juice splotches off. The purple liquid bleeds into the water and Sara is too engrossed in her task to fully react when Lorna moves. She only moves to stand, but the action is so fast and full of energy it takes Sara aback. Her eyes roam up Lorna's still-dank green dress until they reach her pale eyes, focused and sharp for probably the first time since Sara's met her. The lime-green orbs snap back and forth across the treetops.

"Lorna? Whaaat're you doing?"

"I smell them."

"Uh… smell what, exactly?"

" _The turtles._ They are ever so ripe." Lorna's voice changes then, growing parched and high-pitched. Finally, her thin and sickly appearance becomes apparent through her voice. Sara is a hundred-percent sure she liked the girl better when she spoke with her Old English accent.

Sara only realizes what Lorna actually said after a few seconds. " _Wait_. D-Did you just say turtles? You eat—"

"Oh, Sara," Suddenly Lorna's pale face is pressed inches from hers, and Sara notices that the other girl is shaking with hunger. The grey crescents around her eyes grow and make the bright green of her irises stand out further. "Won't you come with me? I really am _starving_. Please."

"Yeah…I-I'll go with you. Yeah."

Before Sara can regret her answer, Lorna grabs her arm launches into a fast run, much faster than Sara expects her to be able to do in her current state _and_ in a soaked dress. Lorna's probably faster than Anna, even.

They pass through a thin patch of trees that separates the river they came out of and a huge, grassy pasture opens up before them. The grass is half-dead and golden in the afternoon light, but the smell of it is pleasing enough to Sara that she can calm down enough to maybe consider what Lorna's doing as a joke or some other weird thing people living in the Unknown do. For all she knows, the people living here might like eating turtles on a normal basis.

The pasture dips a bit a few meters later, and Lorna pulls Sara alongside her, both of them slip-sliding down the dried-out hillside, the crazed girl scraping her knees along the way. Sara _screams_ along the way, but it's drowned out by the wind and stops unexpectedly when she sees it.

 _It_ being the pile of stones stacked over each other to form four crude walls. Sara would never call it a house if she hadn't seen the metal chimney sticking out of the mess haphazardly and the single window reflecting the orange sky. There's no smoke slipping from the chimney's mouth, and the wind that whips the dried branches of the few trees behind the 'house' is only scented with the rich smells of fall. _Not even close to the smell of a turtle_ , Sara thinks.

Lorna sighs beside her. "This is the place—the witch Adelaide's house."

"Did you just say witch?" Sara twists in Lorna's grip. If it were anywhere else, the mention of a witch would merely be a joke; but in the Unknown Sara has no doubt that a witch can exist. And if witches could exist, an infinite number of other creatures could be in the woods with her. Maybe Lorna was one of them. "No. Lorna, _let go of me_."

Surprisingly, the girl does, her pale fingers almost creaking audibly when she opens her hand. "So be it."

Lorna leaves Sara there, just on the bottom of the hill as she hastily jumps over the leaning wood fence and enters the house. Sara realizes that she's still holding onto Lorna's apron, the stains partially washed out.

* * *

It doesn't take very long for Wirt to realize that he's not the only one still conscious.

His phone is alarmingly warm in his hand and the 911 operator on the other end is asking him to stand, to look for anyone else there with him, to please calm down. _Please calm down, sir. Help is being dispatched right now._ But the huge crack on his smartphone's screen is slowly getting to it, the lady's clear instructions dissolving into the crinkle and snap of static. Wirt hears himself saying that he can't understand what she's saying, but all he really registers is the unrecognizable sheet of metal that was the crumpled truck's driver side door jingle and screech open.

And just as the truck driver—a man with both a broken arm and nose—shoves himself out of the cramped mess, Wirt's phone pings dejectedly, and dies.

He shoves it back into his pocket. Staying on the phone wouldn't have made a difference anyway; they are in the middle of nowhere, it would take nearly an hour for help to come.

Stress squeezes tight around Wirt's lungs. It squeezes tight around his heart too, weighting him down until he's kneeling on the road again, thigh still bleeding and head pounding in the summer sun. He knows he should be doing something; it's not like there's any shortage of stuff to worry over. He could wrap up his wound for one, or help out the staggering truck driver, but the thing _really_ gnawing on his mind at the moment, is lying just feet away.

Sara and Greg are both unconscious, lying on the roadside and getting grass stains on their clothes. Wirt had dragged them out of his car just before making the 911 call, head thrumming when he recalls seeing Sara squished up between her seat and the steering wheel. _She'd been the one driving._ Wirt speculates that he must've been sleeping when the crash happened, because when he looks back even now all he can remember is packing up snacks alongside Greg's rapid-fire chatter about Jason Funderburker.

" _Rorrrp."_

The deep croak is accompanied by a heavy, slimy mass slipping out from under his stiflingly thick sweatshirt. It's where he'd slipped the frog into when he found the plastic cage Greg kept the amphibian in during long trips. Jason Funderburker stares up at him with glassy black eyes when he looks down. It's impossible, but Wirt's certain he can see the same wide-eyed panic flashing in their pet's stare.

"What's with the frog?"

It's an unfamiliar voice, and Wirt knows it belongs to the truck driver. He picks himself and the frog up from the ground. "The frog belongs to me and my brother."

Although his reply is muffled and barely understandable, the quiet around them helps carry his words to the truck driver's ears and the man quiets, finally seeing Greg and Sara. Wirt limps over until he's standing in front of the guy. "Need some help?"

The wooden electrical pole the truck rammed into is cracked in half, the top half leaning heavily on the truck's roof and the huge metal compartment attached to it. All the wires hanging from it have snapped, sparks shooting from the silvery black tips. Wirt can't walk very well himself, even the truck driver sees his limp, but the man is leaning all his weight on the truck's wheels and standing on a broken leg _can't_ feel very good. So it's no mystery when the guy nods tightly and lets Wirt slip under his arm and clumsily lead him to the side of the road.

Wirt's tall, tall enough for people to notice and tease him about it, but he's also pretty thin—not enough to really be a burden, just enough for his Mom to add an extra helping of food onto his plate during dinner. The truck driver dwarfs him a few inches, and isn't very built, but he's barely able to handle his own weight on his one working leg and put most (if not _all)_ of it on Wirt's shoulders. It makes the teen's knobby knees shake and almost buckle under the weight. " _God_ , you're heavier than I expected."

There's no reply, and Wirt thinks that the truck driver's too pained to hear him, pursing his lips to keep from talking. He drags the man past the live wires inches away from the white-hot sparks and lays him down on the dried-out grass beside Greg and Sara. He's still wide-awake and his fluttering eyes move from Wirt to the truck. "Thanks, kid."

Wirt looks at the truck too, bitter acid burning in the back of his throat. "It's—It's no problem." He tugs hard on the hem of his sweatshirt and looks back down at the driver. The man's face is pale and sweaty under the grime and blood of his broken nose. "I'll get some stuff for your nose."

The thin undershirt Wirt wears beneath his sweatshirt is soggy with perspiration, but he uses it anyway, ripping the white cotton into strips of makeshift bandages. He wraps one of the strips around his thigh. It feels like hell on earth when he pulls at the ends to form a knot, but he gets them tight enough not to unravel and blood immediately seeps into the material. When he shuffles closer to wipe off some of the blood on the driver's face, the man scrunches up his face and moves his head away.

"No need. I'm fine," he says, words barely above a grumble. He gets even paler.

"What? No, no. You look _terrible_ —" Wirt pauses at the look the truck driver sends him and backtracks a bit. "T-That's not what I meant. C'mon—"

Even though he's most certainly weak, the man manages to bat away Wirt's approaching hand. "Listen to me, kid! There were two other cars driving behind me when it happened. I think they hit the side of the truck."

A dog's yips and whines make them both stop. Before Wirt can know any better, he's pushing the bandages into the truck driver's hands and running. He feels the bandage on his thigh growing heavy with liquid, but he doesn't stop running until he reaches the other side of the truck and wonders how stupid he could be. The truck is a U-Haul, and just behind it are two cars filled to the brim with bags and valuables the family undoubtedly hiring the truck was trying to move into their new home just before the crash.

* * *

The stars are just beginning to peek through the purple-black dusk, the river slowly regaining that scary aura now that the night is creeping in. Sara stares into the fast-flowing water and blinks at her own reflection, taking note of the red nicks and the redness in the whites of her eyes. She wills herself to remember the events of a few days ago, the events before she and Greg somehow got into the Unknown. But it's impossible. Memories of last week are fresh and clear in her mind, but fast forward days and suddenly she's in the middle of the woods with no recollection of how she got here in the first place.

Fireflies dart around the treetops and Sara looks down to her hands, the fingers sporting stubborn oil stains and dirt lodged under her nails. She has a callus just between her pointer finger and thumb, the hardened bit of skin joining lots of others. But this one is the newest and stands out to Sara from all the others from her years of kickboxing, ballet, and self-defence class. The callus is from holding onto the steering wheel.

Sara's always liked driving, stepping down hard onto the gas pedal and zooming at breakneck speeds always appealed to her, just like landing a perfect punch or managing a pirouette without twisting her ankle. Then without realizing it, the forest dissolves around her and she's in her car, driving down a wide and winding mountain road. It's so strange Sara doesn't question it right up until something hurtles full speed towards her and she swerves, light flashing in her eyes and the car horn screaming.

When the vision ends Lorna's screaming replaces the car horn's.

Grass swishes brown and black in the approaching night, their wispy tips grazing Sara's elbows as she wades through them in a run as fast as she could manage.

There's a light on in the window, some of it spilling out of the open front door. Sara jumps the low fence and stumbles into the tiny house, smelling candle smoke and eyes widening when she takes in the her surroundings. Every surface available in the house is covered with lush carpet and intricate quilts. The four walls closing in on her are covered from the very edge of the ceiling to the floor, rugs and carpets of every shape and size covering the wooden slats. The only thing that stands out is the stone chimney, and the girl kneeling just inches from it, still screaming.

It's a scream Sara's never hear before, keening and booming around her like it comes from every direction. The girl, Lorna, is paler than Sara's ever seen her, her thin lips peeling back to reveal her glinting teeth as she screams. The scream is so loud Sara is actually scared to come any closer, hesitating to step too close and staying by the doorway.

Eventually Lorna does stop. Sara's ears still ring when she takes her first step forward, noticing the pile of dusty old yarn lying in a pile on the floor, their ends cut haphazardly. Everything's dusty, actually, and Sara supposes that no one's stepped inside here for a very long time.

"You should look for your friends."

"What?"

"Gregory and that other girl, the Woodsman's daughter. It would be better if you looked for them before another day passes."

"Er, I think they'll be fine. Anna knows these woods better than me, anyway. I think it'd be better if I stayed here awhile." Sara pauses to think on her next words. "Help you out a bit."

"I do not need any help."

Sara deduces that it's perfectly safe to come closer and walks the few steps until she's beside the girl, sitting down beside her. There's something between them though, and Sara expects it be one of the rich quilts hanging on the walls, but buttons wink at her from the mess of fabric and she realizes it is clothing. There's dress with neat little buttons, and a cloak just like Anna's, this time darker and of an even heaver material. A white bonnet identical Lorna's is there too, clutched tight in Lorna's pale-knuckled grip.

Sara balls up Lorna's apron (she's been holding it all this time, miraculously) and places it on the ground between them. "I think you do."

Lorna looks up at her then, and her eyes are wide and pale and just… _bewitching_. "Alright."

They don't move from their places, and Sara is afraid to mess up the abandoned clothes still surrounding Lorna, but the girl gets up anyway, still holding onto the bonnet. They light a fire with the ancient firewood and it blazes, but still remains cold on Sara's skin.

"Where would you like to start?"

Sara starts at how calm Lorna is, but notices the slight twitch in her bony fingers and knows the pale girl is doing something to supress her emotions for the moment. She desperately wants to ask what it is, but her mouth works too fast for her own good and asks another one of the questions swarming around her head like flies. "Do you _really_ eat turtles?"

Lorna giggles weakly at her question, and points to a woven basket in the corner of the room. Shiny black stones are inside, and Sara's close to pointing that out when she notices the miniscule ridges on the surface of the stones. They aren't normal ridges too, but are uniform and follow some sort of pattern. Sara knows she pales, the coolness on her skin intensifies. The stones are turtle shells.

"They are not real turtles."

Sara raises her eyebrows despite the unnatural fear building up in her system.

Lorna backtracks a bit. "I mean, they breathe and swim like turtles, but they are not alive, not truly." She moves the bonnet around in her hands a bit, and a rounded edge juts out of the white material. Sara doesn't ask about it. "The only thing flowing in their veins is hate, after all."

Sara tears her gaze away from the turtle shells. She can't bear asking another question, suddenly feeling very small. The Unknown always surprises her, throwing impossible and mysterious feats right at her like there is no tomorrow. But this is all bordering on nonsensical, the story Anna told her about being some sort of beast not even close to what Lorna is telling her about living-but-not-quite turtles.

"You don't have to strain yourself. This is all a lot to take in."

"How'd you know?"

"Your face is just like someone I met once," Lorna says, a soft, nostalgic smile stretching over her face. "He looked just as dumbfounded."

Sara finds herself laughing a bit. "Yeah, this place is just _full_ of surprises. But I think it's better if I try to understand them rather than push them away. Right?"

"Maybe. I usually run away from my demons. But maybe it would be different for you." Lorna shrugs.

A quiet falls over them and Sara grits her teeth, launching head-on with her next question. She would get this over with no matter what. "Where do you get the turtles? Do they live in water like normal ones do? Or do they just come from everywhere?"

"They all come from the largest lake in all of the Unknown, and Mr. Feesh fishes for them. But they do get out of the lake and wander around the woods. There have been many accidents on their account."

"What kind of accidents?"

It takes a bit longer for Lorna to answer. "The turtles are borne of hate, yes? Well, when one eats or kills a turtle mistakenly, the hate imbued in the turtle transfers to the creature eating it. It numbs their conscience and makes them hungry for blood." Another pause. "No one yet knows how to cure creatures suffering from this."

Sara doesn't need to ask about what happens if a person consensually eats or hurts a black turtle. That's the only thing she _does_ know. "Why are you eating them then?"

"I knew you would inquire about that." She grins a bit. "You are possibly familiar with this term, so I will not explain any further more than telling you that I am a witch. We are the only creatures able to digest the black turtles properly without catching any of their toxins. Their formation alone is full of old magic and traces of that are what we look for when we eat them."

"So you eat them to become powerful? And you don't turn evil or have any side effects?"

"Well," Lorna slips off her bonnet and parts her black hair in the middle, revealing the roots that shine silvery grey. "The toxins affect us a bit differently."

The next question Sara is about to ask is about the pile of clothes still on the floor, but then she remembers something. "You said 'us'; are there more witches?"

Just like that everything changes. Lorna's eyes distort and suddenly she's crying again, a strange gust of bone-chilling wind blowing past Sara the moment it happens. The magic Lorna had apparently used to keep herself together to talk coherently to Sara is broken, and she is back to being a sobbing mess clutching at someone's old cap.

Sara swears, falling onto her back. The cold air swirls like a blizzard all around her and an angry force shakes the earth right under her body. A few of the quilts fall from the walls and slump in grey clouds of dust, the discarded pieces of yarn flying up in red-purple swirls, dancing along the wind. Soon the very foundations of the house starts to shake, dusty falling from the ceiling. Sara scrambles from the floor and tries to stand on the undulating ground; Lorna's sobs echoing everywhere just like her screams from before.

"Lorna!"

Sara takes one step and falls just beside the other girl, her hands clamping over her shoulders. But the girl radiates an unnatural heat, her skin and clothes as hot as a Dutch oven. Sara withdraws her hands with a scream and holds them to her chest, the skin of her palms burnt. Tears of surprise and pain well in her eyes and she picks herself up from the floor and stumbles out of the house.

Even outside Lorna's voice surrounds her. But the shaking has stopped, and Sara curls down on the ground, her singed hands hot and painful. She knows first aid for this, but everything else weights down heavy on her brain and she can't remember what to do in the slightest. Even her body agrees, and soon her eyes are closing and she forgets the pain for a while.

There's a bell in her hands.

Her _unburned_ hands. The hands Sara would bet were red and blistery just before she'd passed out. But now they're completely normal, too normal. All her calluses and bitten nails are gone, the skin left smooth and blemish-free.

Sara sits up and looks down at the bell in her hands. The bell is one of those round kinds used in hotels, but stylized to look like a black turtle, the usually shiny gold dome replaced with a cast iron turtle shell. Sara would've thought it was the real thing if it wasn't for the tiny nub on the shell that she knew would make the bell sound if she pressed it.

She's about to, when she sees the slip of paper jutting from under the space between the dome and the floor of the bell. She takes it out and Lorna's calligraphic writing jumps out at her.

 _My deepest apologies._

 _You should look for your friends, I am certain they are missing you dearly. I am leaving this bell with you. Please do not use it until you are sure you need it. Newly made magical things have no proper use until you've used it for the first time, and anything can happen if you ring this bell without properly finding a good use for it._

 _Sorry again, Lorna_

Sara folds the paper up and slips it into the pocket of her jeans, looking around her for the first time since she's woken up. The house behind her is a grey pile of rock. Bits and pieces of cloth peek out of the rubble and Sara walk up to the mess. She's pulling at the corner of the simplest looking quilt and supposes she could use it as a soft of cloak when she sleeps, when the edge of paper catches her eye. She pulls it out and sees the black marks of pen ink show through the thin material, but she keeps it for later and stuffs it into her pocket with Lorna's letter.

The quilt she manages to pull out is in perfect condition save for the few moth holes and the dust, but it's warm and not too thick. Sara wraps it around her shoulders and passes the fence and the long grass until she's at the river again. She follows it back the way she'd come and hopes Anna and Greg are still there.

* * *

 **Just 3 chapters left after this one! The next one may take awhile, since I'm struggling how to end this story exactly on 10 chapters. Anyway, enjoy! I love comments, so give me some lol**


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